The flow of water is between walls of rock over a rocky bed, and the rapids extend for a distance of thirty-five or forty feet. (Ses Kahoes.) Niskayune, now so written as the name of a town and of a village in Schenectady County, is from Kanistagionne, primarily located on the north side of the Mohawk, Canastagiozcane (1667) being the oldest form of record. The locative description reads : "Lying at a place called Neastegaione, * * known by the name of Kanistegaione." West of Schenectady the Mohawk is a succession of rapids. At or below Schenectady it makes a bend to the northeast in the form of a crescent, around which the water flows in a sluggish current. At the north point of the crescent was, and prob-

^ The name having been submitted to the Bureau of Ethnology for interpretation, the late Prof. J. W. Powell, Chief, wrote me, as the oponion of himself and his colaborers : "The name is unquestionably from the Algonquian Koowa."

202 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

ably is a place called by the Dutch the Aal-plaat (Eel-place), marked on maps by a small stream from the north which still bears the name, and which formed the eastern boundmark of the Schenectady Patent. In Barber's collection it is stated that there was an Indian village here called Canastagaones, or "People of the Eel-place." Naturally there wovild be fishing villages in the vicinity. The location of the Aal-plaat is particularly identified in the Mohawk deed for five small islands lying at Kanastagiowne, in 1667, and by the abstract of title filed by one Evart van Ness in 1715. (Cal. Land Papers.) The name is from Keantsica, "Fish," of the larger kind, and -gionni, "Long" -- tsi, "Very long" -- constructively, "The Longfish place," the Aal-plaat, or Eel-place, of the Dutch.