486 
RURAL HOURS. 
(fee., (fee., are either names still found in the Iroquois eountry, or 
whieh formerly existed there. This syllable Ca, and that of Ot and 
Os, were as eommon at the eommeneement of a name as agua, 
aga, ogua, were at the eonelusion. 
From the ro\dng life lead by the Indians, hunting and fishing 
in different places, according to the changes in the seasons, they 
have left but few names to towns and villages, and scarcely any 
to plains and valleys. Nor does it seem always easy to decide 
whether they gave their own names to the lakes and rivers, or re- 
ceived them from the streams ; in very many cases in this part of 
the continent the last would seem to have been the case, espe- 
cially in the subdivisions of the clans, for scarce a river but what 
had a tribe of its own fishing and hunting upon its banks. Their 
names for the mountains have only reached us in a general way, 
such as the Alleghany, or Endless-chain, the Kittatinny, (fee., 
(fee. Perhaps the fact that the mountains in this region lie chiefly 
in ridges, unbroken by striking peaks, may be one reason why 
single hills have not preserved Indian names ; but in many in- 
stances the carelessness of the first colonists was probably the 
cause of their being lost, since here and there one of a bolder 
outline than usual must have attracted the attention of such an 
observant race. 
Our own success in naming the bills has been indifferent ; the 
principal chains, the Blue, the Green, the White Mountams, the 
Catsbergs, the Highlands, (fee., (fee., do well enough in the mass, 
but as regards the individual hills we are apt to fail sadly. A 
large number of them bear the patronymic of conspicuous po- 
litical men. Presidents, Governors, (fee., (fee. That the names of 
men honorably distinguished should occasionally be given to 
