This misdirection is supposed to arise chiefly from great repetition of
old township, city, county, and village names. Let any one take up a
gazetteer or post-office list who wishes to see this. Names that are
sonorous and appropriate are rejected; but there is hardly a county in
any of the new States without their Springfields, and Fairfields, and
Oxfords, and Warwicks without number. Where they do not abound taste is
often put to shame. Mud Creek, and Jack's Corner, and Shingle Hollow are
doubtless appropriate names compared to some. But cannot _we supply a
remedy by drawing on the aboriginal vocabulary_?
_26th_. Completed the revision of a body of Indian oral legends,
collected during many years with labor. These oral tales show up the
Indian in a new light. Their chief value consists in their exhibition of
aboriginal opinions. But, if published, incredulity will start up
critics to call their authenticity in question. There are so many Indian
tales fancied, by writers, that it will hardly be admitted that there
exist any _real_ legends.
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