A NOTE ON THE ETYMON OF ONTARIO. 503 



Great Lake" — from the Huron lontare lake and to great. While 

 more recently, Schoolcraft (vol. v. .594) has stated that the original 

 appellation of the Lake was Onontario, which he conjectures to be 

 compounded of io, an exclamation of surprise or delight, onon hills, 

 and dar rocks. The precise applicability of the epithet thus in- 

 terpreted is not manifest. The form of the word is also otherwise 

 varied. On a " Plan of the Early Forts on the Richelieu River," 

 given in vol. iii. of the Relation des Jesuites it is given as Ondiara, 

 and in the " Documentary History of the State ol' New York," 

 (v. 709) it figures as Untarie. 



Ontario, outspread in silvery calm, as we often see it, or when 

 reflecting back from its "unnumbered dimples" the pure azure of the 

 heavens, is doubtless beautiful ; but so are all our lakes, under similar 

 circumstances. Hence the name, as commonly understood, does not 

 seem to be sufficiently distinctive. Certainly it is not impossible that 

 a word in the Huron and Iroquois dialect, expressive of beauty 

 generally, may have been caught up by some early French explorer, 

 and applied erroneously as a proper name. For popular and poetic 

 purposes " Beautiful Lake " answers well enough; but I think we 

 shall see directly, that a truer and better account of the appellation 

 may be given. 



Before proceeding to explain, it may not be uninteresting to men- 

 tion that our Lake has borne a variety of names. In an " Account 

 of Encroachments of the English on the Territories of New France, 

 1699," {Vide Doct. Hist. N.Y., ix. 702,) it is called the "Lake of the 

 Iroquois." And so also in the Plan of Early Forts above referred to. 

 It has also been called, no doubt locally, Lake Cataraqui, Lake 

 Oswego, (this is said to be the Iroquois appellation) and Lake 

 Neageh. Governor Dongan, of New York, in a communication to 

 Mons. de la Barre, in 1 683, styles it, for convenience probably, the 

 Lake of Canada. Once it was known as Lake Frontenac, in honour 

 of the Count de Frontenac, a distinguished Governor General of 

 Canada in 16/2, from whom the Fort which formed the original 

 nucleus of Kingston was named, and from whom the County in which 

 Kingston is situated, is still named. On Hennepin's map it is marked 

 " Lac Ontario ou de Frontenac." It has also borne the name of St. 

 Louis 5 it is so designated in Champlaiu's map, 1632; and in the 

 map accompanying the Historia Canadensis, by the Jesuit du Creux, 

 1662. In this last mentioned map (which may be seen in Bressani's 



