218 LABRADOR 
ability to the Anglo-Saxon ear is evident from the con- 
tinued use over the country of their innumerable place- 
names. Once adopted by the white race, these names are 
rarely displaced; indeed, are brought more into use as 
time goes on. More than half of the Indian place-names 
of the northeastern states would be readily understood by 
the Montagnais or the Nascaupees of Ungava Bay: thus, 
K’taadn, Monadnock, and Wachusett; Penobscot, Kenne- 
bee, and Connecticut; Massachusetts, Narraganset, and 
Manhattan, are as plain in their meaning to the northern- 
most Cree of the barrens as they are familiar in sound to 
the white dwellers of New England. 
To the white stranger these are merely well-sounding 
names, but without significance; to the Indian each brings 
its image: the “Great Mountain’; the ‘‘Mountain-stand- 
ing-alone”’; the “ Long-open-water’’ (Moosehead Lake) ; 
“Long-river”; the ‘Region-about-the-large-hills” (Blue 
Hills); the ‘‘Point-country”’ (Mount Hope Point); ‘The 
Island,” — and the list might go on. 
Algonquin place-names are rarely fanciful; the method 
of life required an accurate and serviceable system of geo- 
graphical description, the function of which was too im- 
portant to be trifled with. Much of the eastern country 
was remarkably irregular and made up of features often 
repeating themselves at different angles. Few regions of 
the world, perhaps, are as confusing to the traveller as 
were formerly the vast forested areas of mountains and 
watercourses throughout the north Atlantic belt. 
Of necessity the descriptive method of the people was of 
almost legal severity, and is in the north to-day. Personal 
names, however, are often subjects of fancy. The humour 
