or _abruptly_.' These shades of meaning are not likely to be detected
under the disguises in which river-names come down to our time. Râle
translates _ne-peské_, "je vas dans le chemin qui en coupe un autre:"
_peskahak[oo]n_, "branche."

_Piscataqua_, Pascataqua, &c., represent the Abn. _peské-teg[oo]é_,
'divided tidal-river.' The word for 'place' (_ohke_, Abn. _'ki_,)
being added, gives the form _Piscataquak_ or _-quog_. There is another
_Piscataway_, in New Jersey,--not far below the junction of the north
and south branches of the Raritan,--and a Piscataway river in
Maryland, which empties into the Potomac; a _Piscataquog_ river,
tributary to the Merrimac, in New Hampshire; a _Piscataquis_
(diminutive) in Maine, which empties into the Penobscot. _Pasquotank_,
the name of an arm of Albemarle Sound and of a small river which flows
into it, in North Carolina, has probably the same origin.

The adjectival _peské_, or _piské_, is found in many other compound
names besides those which are formed with _-tuk_ or _-hanne_: as in
_Pascoag_, for _peské-auké_, in Burrilville, R.I., 'the dividing
place' of two branches of Blackstone's River; and _Pesquamscot_, in
South Kingston, R.I., which (if the name is rightly given) is "at the
divided (or cleft) rock,"--_peské-ompsk-ut_,--perhaps some ancient
land-mark, on or near the margin of Worden's Pond.

_Nôeu-tuk_ (_Nóahtuk_, Eliot), 'in the middle of the river,' may be,
as Mr. Judd[14] and others have supposed, the name which has been
variously corrupted to Norwottock, Nonotuck, Noatucke, Nawottok, &c.
If so, it probably belonged, originally to one of the necks or
peninsulas of meadow, near Northampton,--such as that at Hockanum,
which, by a change in the course of the river at that point, has now