366 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



name belongs — whether to the Latin Aqua, with its Spanish rendering, or to the 

 Sanscrit Ogha (which is perhaps the true parent of the later word). The evi- 

 dences, however, are in favor of the Latin, from the fact that in the Old World, 

 among all the titles given to the rivers, this version or pronunciation of the Sanscrit 

 word is rarely if ever found : — 



Nicaragua, Autaugua, Watauga, Saguana, Chickamauga, Connesagua, Par- 

 agua (Paraguay), and Uragua. We have also such names as Chicago {Chuckagua, 

 one of the early names of the Mississippi), Canadinagua, and many other "aguas." 

 What is supposed to be one of the earliest writings of the name now written Con- 

 nesagua is in Canasaqua. (Ramsey's "Annals of Tennessee," p. 26.) 



Some Epithets and Idioms in the Aboriginal Indian Names. — As an 

 evidence that the early colonists of America — or at least those who named the 

 rivers of the Continent — are really of comparatively modern extraction, we may 

 cite the fact that their nomenclature abounds in adjectives and descriptive phrases, 

 while the language of primitive men in remote eras, as stated in a previous para- 

 graph, indicates only the briefest nouns and verbs. A great majority of the (ap- 

 parent) epithets in the native American names have unmistakable identity with 

 the Latin. Roman idioms and phrases are presented with very curious and in- 

 teresting development in analyses of those names — especially names of some 

 of the great rivers of the Continent. 



The Roman term for great was the well-known word magnus. Its abbrevia- 

 tion in the Latin was magh, ma (or mah, which refers to its Sanscrit root. Mak 

 is the brief transcript of the Greek synonym.) The letter M was sometimes used 

 as an abbreviation. 



Now it is a very various and striking fact that this letter M, or some other 

 abbreviation oi magnus, is in the native " appellation " of nearly all our great waters. 

 It is, indeed, in the name of all, with the exception of those where the sublime 

 idea is indicated by terms other than in magnus ; or where there was some con- 

 spicuous natural fact so distinctive as to require illustration otherwise — as, for 

 instance, in the case of the Orinoco of South America. I believe this word is 

 simply Orien aqua — or the river that runs to the Sunrise. This is in perfect illus- 

 tration of the actual physical fact; no other river in the world for the same dis- 

 tance runs more directly to the Sunrise, or to the Oriens, than the Orinoco. 

 There is another river in North America that had originally the same Indian 

 name — the Orien(s)aqua. It is a river that runs so nearly to the sunrise, that in 

 an easterly course of over two hundred miles it crosses a single parallel of latitude 

 six or eight times. Its ancient name has been corrupted to " Roanoke"; but if 

 the student desires to find how the earliest explorers of Virginia and North Caro- 

 lina wrote the word, the versions will be found in "Hawks' History of North 

 Carolina." Local tradition preserves the original name yet in the famous " Oro- 

 noko tobaccou " that grows along this river. 



These, indeed, are remarkable coincidences. The early Indian's mind was 

 thoroughly scientific, and titles were truly characteristic. Definite expression, as 

 we have stated elsewhere, was conveyed in the word coined. Hence, when a 



