began to feel the suction of the wide current that leaps, jump after jump, over that foaming bed, our inclinations and our courage rose together to go down the formidable pass; and having full faith in the long-tried pilotage of our guide, Tom Shaw, down we went, rushing at times like a thunderbolt, then turned by a dab of the pole of our guide, on a rock, shooting off in eschelon, and then careering down another schute, or water bolt, till we thus dodged every rock, and came out below with a full roaring chorus of our Canadians, who, as they cleared the last danger, hoisted our starry flag at the same moment that they struck up one of their wild and joyous, songs.

22d.  I have questioned the Indians closely for the names of Sault Ste. Marie and Lake Superior.  They are destined to hold an important rank in our future geography.  But the result is not agreeable to preconceived poetic notions.  When the French first came to these falls, they found the Chippewas, the falls signifying, descriptively, Shallow water pitching over rocks, or by a prepositional form of the term, at the place of shallow water, pitching over rocks.  Such is the meaning of the words Pa-wa-teeg and Pa-wa-ting.  The terms cover more precisely the idea which we express by the word cascade.  The French call a cascade a Leap or Sault; but Sault alone would not be distinctive, as they had already applied the term to some striking passes on the St. Lawrence and other places.  They therefore, in conformity with their general usage, added the name of a patron saint to the term by calling it Sault de Ste. Marie, i.e.  Leap of Saint Mary, to distinguish it from other Leaps, or Saults.  Now as the word Sainte, as here used, is feminine, it must, in its abbreviated form, be written Ste. The preposition de (the) is usually dropped.  Use has further now dropped the sound of the letter l from Sault.  But as, in the reforms of the French dictionary, the ancient geographical names of places remain unaffected, the true phraseology is SAULT STE. MARIE.

Having named the falls a Sault, they went a step further, and called the Odjibwa Indians who lived at it, Saulteurs, or People of the Sault.  Hence this has ever remained the French name for Chippewas.

In the term Gitchegomee, the name for Superior, we have a specimen of their mode of making compounds. Gitche signifies something great, or possessing the property of positive magnitude. Gomee is itself a compound phrase, denoting, when so conjoined, a large body of water.  It is the objective member of their term for the sea; but is governed by its antecedent, and may be used in describing other and minor, even the most minute liquid bodies, as we hear it, in the compound term mushkuagomee, i.e. strong drink.  Under the government of the term gitchee, it appears to express simply the sense of great water, but conveys the idea, to the Indian