[Footnote 88: Col. William Lithgow's deposition, 1767,--in New England
Historical and General Register, xxiv. 24.]

* * * * *

In view of the illustrations which have been given, we repeat what was
stated in the beginning of this paper, that Indian place-names are not
_proper names_, that is unmeaning marks, but significant
_appellatives_, each conveying a _description_ of the locality to
which it belongs. In those parts of the country where Indian languages
are still spoken, the analysis of such names is comparatively easy.
Chippewa, Cree, or (in another family) Sioux-Dakota geographical names
may generally be translated with as little difficulty as other words
or syntheses in the same languages. In New England, and especially in
our part of New England, the case is different. We can hardly expect
to ascertain the meaning of all the names which have come down to us
from dead languages of aboriginal tribes. Some of the obstacles to
accurate analysis have been pointed out. Nearly every geographical
name has been mutilated or has suffered change. It would indeed be
strange if Indian polysyntheses, with their frequent gutturals and
nasals, adopted from unwritten languages and by those who were
ignorant of their meanings, had been exempted from the phonetic change
to which all language is subject, as a result of the universal
disposition "to put more facile in the stead of more difficult sounds
or combination of sounds, and to get rid altogether of what is
unnecessary in the words we use."[89] What Professor Haldeman calls
_otosis_, 'that error of the ear by which words are perverted to a
more familiar form,'[90] has effected some curious transformations.
_Swatara_,[91] the name of a stream in Pennsylvania, becomes 'Sweet