Trumbull wrote: ''Nai, 'Having corners'; Naiyan, 'A corner or angle'; 'Naig-an-eag, 'The people about the point.'" William R. Gerard wrote: "The Algonquian root Ne (written bj' the English Nm) means 'To come to a point,' or 'To form a point.' From this came Ojibwe N aid' ski, 'Point of land in a body of water.' The Lenape Neivds, with the locative affix, makes Newds-ing, 'At the promontory.' The Lenape had another word for 'Point of land.' This was Neiak (corrupted to Nyack). Tt is the participial form of Nc'ian, 'It is a point.' The participle means, 'Where there is a point,' or literally, 'There being a point.' "

122 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

the name is uncertain. The substantival -peek, or -peach, means "Lake, pond or body of still water." ^ As the word stands its adjectival does not mean anything. The local interpretation "Black,"" is entirely without merit. The pond is now known as Rockland Lake. It lies west of the \^erdrietig Hoek range, which inter\'enes between it and the Hudson. It is sheltered on its northeast shore by the range. The ridge intervening between it and the Hudson rises 640 feet. It is a beautiful lake of clear water reposing on a sandy bottom, 160 feet above the level of the Hudson. Menisak=cungue, so written in Indian deed to De Hart in 1666, and also in deed from De Hart to Johannes Minnie in 1695, is written Amisconge on Pownal's map, as the name of a stream in the town of Haverstraw. As De Hart was the first purchaser of lands at Haverstraw, the name could not have been from that of a later owner, as locally supposed. Pownal's orthography suggests that the original was Ommissak-kontu, Mass., "Where Alewives or small fishes are abundant." The locative was at the mouth of the stream at Grassy Point.- Minnie's Falls, a creek so known, no doubt, took that name from Johannes IVIinnie.