The analysis of those names even whose composition appears to be most obvious must be accepted as provisional merely.  The recovery of a lost syllable or of a lost guttural or nasal, the correction of a false accent even, may give to the synthesis another and hitherto unsuspected meaning.  It would be surprising if some of the translations which have been hazarded in this paper do not prove to be wide of their mark.  Even English etymology is not reckoned among the exact sciences yet,—­and in Algonkin, there is the additional disadvantage of having no Sanskrit verbs “to go,” to fall back on as a last resort.

Recent manifestations of an increasing interest in Indian onomatology, or at least of awakened curiosity to discover the meanings of Indian names, may perhaps justify the writer in offering, at the close of this paper, a few suggestions, as to the method of analysis which appears most likely to give correct results, and as to the tests by which to judge of the probability that a supposed translation of any name is the true one.

1.  The earliest recorded form of the name should be sought for, and every variation from it should be noted.  These should be taken so far as possible from original manuscripts, not from printed copies.

2.  Where the difference of forms is considerable, knowledge of the character and opportunities of the writer may sometimes determine the preference of one form to others, as probably the most accurate.  A Massachusetts or Connecticut name written by John Eliot or Experience Mayhew—­or by the famous interpreter, Thomas Stanton—­may safely be assumed to represent the original combination of sounds more exactly than the form given it by some town-recorder, ignorant of the Indian language and who perhaps did not always write or spell his own correctly.

3.  The name should be considered with some reference to the topographical features of the region to which it belongs.  These may sometimes determine the true meaning when the analysis is doubtful, or may suggest the meaning which would otherwise have been unsuspected under the modern form.

4.  Remembering that every letter or sound had its value,—­if, in the analysis of a name, it becomes necessary to get rid of a troublesome consonant or vowel by assuming it to have been introduced ’for the sake of euphony,’—­it is probable that the interpretation so arrived at is not the right one.

5.  The components of every place-name—­or to speak more generally, the elements of every Indian synthesis are significant roots, not mere fractions of words arbitrarily selected for new combinations.  There has been no more prolific source of error in dealings with the etymology and the grammatical structure of the American languages than that one-sided view of the truth which was given by Duponceau[93] in the statement that “one or more syllables of each simple word are generally chosen and combined together,