368 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Applying the touchstones, let us begin with the Mississippi, the greatest of 

 our rivers. There are many traditions in regard to this name. There is one — 

 given in Barnes' School History — which gives the meaning as "the gathering 

 of the waters." Certainly there is the great physical fact illustrated there — in 

 the current of that mighty stream; the waters of nearly half a continent are 

 "gathered" in its embrace. The physical and the traditional here agree. We 

 encounter, however, a difficulty in determining the full verbal facts, for our 

 learned men are not fully agreed as to the true word. Hence we are required 

 to evolve or produce order out of the chaotic material found in historical and 

 literary archives. The modern writing, " Mississippi," as previously observed, 

 is a work of fancy. The original has been giv^en as " Metche Sepe" by grave 

 and learned authority; and "sepe" or "sippi," is a recognized term for river in 

 the Indian. These evidently have origin in apa — the " epe " or "ippi" being 

 mere corrupt pronunciations of the Wallachian word (apa). There are, I think, 

 less than a dozen of the Indian river names now written in "epe" or "ippe;" 

 while in scores of them the river term is rendered in Apa and Aba. Marquette,. 

 in 1673, gave the original word as " Metchi Sipi." The missionary Allouez, in 

 1665, wrote it " Messipi; " and one of transcripts of the river name given by De 

 Soto, the discoverer, in 1540, shows " Mico " (or Meso). 



The original name is evidently composed of two terms — the prefix being 

 something which the early writers endeavored to transcribe as " Messe," " Messa" 

 or "Metcha." A close scrutiny of all the testimony bearing upon the name — 

 comparing it with the word Missouri — makes the true aboriginal name Messis-apa. 

 We must take the name Missouri into consideration from the fact that geographers 

 and geologists alike generally regard the Missouri as the true Mississippi. The 

 Indian evidently took the same view of the rivers ; for the two words are almost 

 identical in origin and significance. 



The descriptive in the names are pure Latin. They come from the ' verb 

 meto, which, means to tneasure, or Xo gather togther. ■ In conjugating the verb these 

 forms are developed: meto, messis, messoz (or messio). The latter means "the 

 gathering." This epithet, joined with Sanscrit term Ri, which is indicative of 

 the rapid, rushing current so characteristic of this river, gives us almost the iden- 

 tical orthography originally used (by our earliest explorers there) for the name 

 Messuiri. 



There are nice subtle differences in the two names — Messuiri and Messisapa 

 — that betray in their coinage a mind schooled in science, not only the science of 

 lexicography, but of geography and hydrography also. From Memphis down — 

 say from the point where De Soto first discovered the river — the name Messis- 

 apa truly appUes. This word means, with the Latin theory in regard to the prefix 

 — tke gathered water. Above that point the river is gathering into its embrace the 

 other great waters of the valley ; and hence the legitimate application of the par- 

 ticiple to the upper river, hence the Messui-ri — truly the gathering river— ind. not 

 the "muddy river," as some authorities say the word means. 



These are certainly striking, if not startling, testimonies revealing the In- 



