But the
difference may arise from that in the mother tongue, or in the delicacy
of the ear, of those who have supplied us with other verbal and
pronominal forms or vocabularies."
_22d_, The Indian names may be studied analytically.
_Ches_ (pronounced by the Algonquin Indians _Chees_), signifies a plant
of the turnip family. _Beeg_ is the plural, and denotes water existing
in large bodies, such as accumulations in the form of lakes and seas. If
these two roots be connected by the usual sound in Algonquin words, thus
Ches-a-beeg, a sound much resembling Chesapeake would be produced. The
Nanticokes, who inhabited this bay on its discovery, were of the
Algonquin stock.
Potomac appears to be a clipped expression, derived, I believe, from
Po-to-wau-me-ac. Po-to-wau, as we have it, in Potawattomie, means to
make a fire in a place where fires, such as council fires, are usually
made. The _ac_ in the word is apparently from _ak_ or _wak_, a standing
tree. The whole appears descriptive of a burning tree, or a
burning forest.
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