The Indian name does not belong to the woodland; it locates the tract near the island, in which connection it is probably an equivalent

1 Weise's Hist, of Troy. * Woodward's Reminiscences of Troy. ' "Whale-fishing Island" is a mistranslation of "Walvish Eiland" (Dutch), meaning simply "Whale Island." It is related by Van der Donck (1656) the thatoneduring river, the great of which freshet ofand1647, was stranded a number killed on this ofisland. whales Hence ascende'd the «ame.

^4 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

of Paitgasuck, "A place at which a strait widens or opens out" (Trumbull), or where the narrow passage between the island and the main land begins to widen. In the same district Pogsquampacak is written as the name of a small creek flowing into Hoosick River.

Wallumschack, so written in return of survey of patent granted to Cornelius van Ness and others, in 1738, for lands now in Washington County ; IValloomscook, and other forms ; now preserved inWalloomsac, as the name of a place, a district of country, and a stream flowing from a pond on the Green Mountains, in the town of Woodford, near Bennington, Vermont.^ It has not been specifically located, but apparently described a place on the adjacent hills where material was obtained for making paints with which the Indic^ns daubed their bodies. (See Washiack.) It is from a generic root written in diiiferent dialects, Walla, Wara etc., meaning " Fine, handsome, good," etc., from wliich in the Delaware, Dr. Brinton derived Wdldm, "Painted, from the sense to be fine in appearance, to dress, w^hich the Indians accomplished by painting their bodies," and -onipsk (Natick), with the related meaning of standing or upright, the combination expressing " Place of the paint rocks." ^ The ridges of many of the hills as well as of the mountains in the district are composed of slate, quartz, sandstone and limestone, which compose the Takonic system.