642 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Mr. Moore then proceeds by a most astounding assumption to make it ap 

 pear that the river names of America, meaning the Indian names of our streams, 

 are derived directly from the most ancient of known tongues, the "Semitic." I 

 will ask how does this statement accord with his other statement, that the pre- 

 historic man was a man schooled in science ? The Semitic tongue was prehis- 

 toric, and written language greatly preceded in time anything like science or 

 schools of science. 



I pass over much that he says about the terms "Aba" and "Na " in which 

 he gathers up everything in the shape of words beginning with the different let- 

 ters of the alphabet, from A to R, and tries to make it appear that they all come 

 from "Abana." He quotes the two river names Niagara and Missouri, and en. 

 deavors to show that they are derived from Abana, meaning in these instances 

 "restless, rapid, rushing current, a stream or a cataract." Pausing for a mo- 

 ment to remark that the African river Niger received its name from the Portu- 

 gese, a people whose language is derived directly from the Latin, and that 

 Niger is not at all the hative name of the river, I shall state without fear of 

 ' contradiction that the names of both the Missouri and Niagara are not the In- 

 dian names of these streams, but were also given to them by those white men 

 who were the first to see them as discoverers, and were the names of the Indian 

 tribe which happened to dwell on the banks of each, respectively, at the time of 

 discovery. I shall give the Indian name of one of these rivers further on. He 

 also pretends to derive the word Mississippi from the Sanscrit, or Dacian, and 

 says that the original word was Messis-apa. Now, Mr. Moore must possess in- 

 formation which no other man possesses on this point, or else he makes an un- 

 qualified misstatement, for I have before me a copy (photograph) of the map drawn 

 by Father Hennepin, and dated 1703. His travels in conjunction with La Salle 

 were along this river in the years 1680-3. Now Hennepin spells the Indian 

 name of the river on this map of which I speak, in one place Meschasipi and 

 gives the meaning Grand River, meaning literally. Great, or Big River. In an- 

 other place on his map, he spells the name Mississipi. On DeLisle's map, dated 

 1 7 18, it is spelled the same as last above; and lastly. Captain Carver spells it on 

 his map, dated 1766, Mississippi, and these men were the first ones to get the name 

 from the Indians. Any one who has a knowledge of the dialects of the Algon- 

 quin Indian languages, knows very well that the termination of the river name 

 in question, viz : si-pi, sip-pi, se-be, (as I have seen it written in more than one 

 instance on old maps and in writings of the past century) is nothing more than 

 attempts to spell the word meaning river in those dialects. In order that it may 

 be seen that I am right in this matter, I here give the different spellings of the 

 Algonquin word meaning river, as pronounced by various bands of that widely 

 spread nation or family of nations, among which the discoverers the Great River 

 traveled on their way to it, and while along it, and from whom they procured 

 the name, given above and from which comes the name we know it by. The 

 Ojibwa of Sault Ste Marie, Se-be (pronounced See-pee). Ojibwa of Grand Tra- 

 verse Bay, Se-be (pronounced See-bee). Ojibwa of Saginaw, See-bea (pronounced 



