[Footnote 31: Primarily, that which 'breaks,' 'cleaves,' 'splits:'
distinguishing the _harder_ rocks--such as were used for making spear
and arrow heads, axes, chisels, corn-mortars, &c., and for striking
fire,--from the _softer_, such as steatite (soap-stone) from which
pots and other vessels, pipe-bowls, &c., were fashioned.]

_Petukqui-ompskut_, corrupted to _Pettiquamscut_, 'at the round rock.'
Such a rock, on the east side of Narrow River, north-east from Tower
Hill Church in South Kingston, R.I., was one of the bound marks of,
and gave a name to, the "Pettiquamscut purchase" in the Narragansett
country.

_Wanashqui-ompskut_ (_wanashquompsqut_, Ezekiel xxvi. 14), 'at the top
of the rock,' or at 'the point of rock.' _Wonnesquam_, _Annis Squam_,
and _Squam_, near Cape Ann, are perhaps corrupt forms of the name of
some 'rock summit' or 'point of rock' thereabouts. _Winnesquamsaukit_
(for _wanashqui-ompsk-ohk-it_?) near Exeter Falls, N.H., has been
transformed to _Swampscoate_ and _Squamscot_. The name of Swamscot or
Swampscot, formerly part of Lynn, Mass., has a different meaning. It
is from _m'squi-ompsk_, 'Red Rock' (the modern name), near the north
end of Long Beach, which was perhaps "The clifte" mentioned as one of
the bounds of Mr. Humfrey's Swampscot farm, laid out in 1638.[32]
_M'squompskut_ means 'at the red rock.' The sound of the initial _m_
was easily lost to English ears.[33]

[Footnote 32: Mass. Records, i. 147, 226.]

[Footnote 33: _Squantam_, the supposed name of an Algonkin deity, is
only a corrupt form of the verb _m'squantam_, = _musqui-antam_, 'he is
angry,' literally, 'he is _red_ (bloody-) minded.']