The cove and mouth of the creek was no doubt the landing-place from which the Indian village was approached, and the latter was accepted for many years as the boundmark on the Hudson of the jurisdiction of New Jersey.

' Strickland Plain was the site of the terrible massacre of Indians by English and Dutch troops under Capt. Underbill, in March, 1645. (Broadhead, Hist. N. Y., i, 390.) About eight hundred Indians were killed by fire and sword, and a considerable number of prisoners taken and sold into slavery. The Indian fort here was in a retreat of difficult access.

I20 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

it as the name of Tappan Creek, and no Hollander would have converted itinto Tappaan or Tappaen. The Palisade Range, which enters the State from New Jersey, and borders the Hudson on the west, terminates abruptly at Piermont. Classed by geologists as Trap Rock, or rock of volcanic origin, a<lds interest to th?ir general appearance as calumnar masses. The aboriginal owners were not versed in geologic terms. To them the Palisades were simply -ompsk, "Standing or upright rock." Mattasink, Mattaconga and Mattaconck, forms of names given to certain boundmarks "of the land or island called JMattasink, or Welch's Is'land," Rockland County, describe two different features. Mattaconck was "a swampy or hassocky meadow," lying on the west side of Ouaspeck Pond, from whence the line ran north, 72° east, "to the south side of the rock on the top of the hill," called Mattasinck. In the surveyor's notes the rock is described as "a certain rock in the form of a sugar loaf." The name is probably an equivalent of Mat-assin-ink, "At (or to) a bad rock," or a rock of unusual form. Mattac-onck seems to be an orthography of Maskek- OHck, "At a swamp or hassocky meadow." Surd mutes and linguals are so frequently exchanged in this district that locatives must be relied upon to identify names.