slight variations in its pronunciation and spelling, but they all designate something large, expanded, quantities of, &c. There the word Michigan can be applied to the State having so many lakelets and being nearly surrounded by water; it can be styled the place of Great Waters. The name is applied irrespective to the land as to the Lake. Now as regards Mississippi Missi or Michi meaning great, and must not be confounded with a similar word of the Dacota tongue having a very different meaning. The same meaning is applied to that as to Michigan, but the latter half of the words are different. "Seepe" or "Neebe" is applied indiscriminately to a lake, or river by some of the western bands of Algonquins, while with other "Gumee" is used, but the ending shows the true meaning the "ee" implying water. It is all very romantic to say that the meaning in Indian is the "Father of Waters" "Long River," &c. For aught I know tinow the Choctaw word, may

mean Long river but Mississippi is not Choctaw or any part and parcel of the Mobilian tongue but good Algonquin. It is high time to purge our history of these fanciful meanings and cease to term Niagara "Thunder of Waters" because the old humbug H. R. S. once endeavored to palm that meaning off on the community, as to him the "Neck" was not romantic enough. Missouri-Minnay Sotor both show the Dacota earmarks, and in both is applicable to turbid or muddy water.

It is difficult to say why Rhode Island was so termed as the record of its nomination is very brief. On the 13th of the first month, 1644, the General Court of Election's passed the following: "It is ordered by this Court, that the Island commonly called Aquethneck, shall be from henceforth called the Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island." This is all the record; neither in the history of the times or in private journals do we find any notice of the change or why.

The first English emigrants to New Jersey soon discovered the necessity of having a faithful translation of the language used by the Aborigines.

This grew out of their social and business intercourse, coupled with the determination to deal fairly with this people-thus avoid dissatisfaction and perhaps bloodshed. The proper authorities of the Salem Colony with John Fenwick as Governor have left on record, in one of the books of those early periods, a translation of Indian terms into the English and which was, no doubt, considered the standard in all things pertaining thereto.

Several of the manuscript books of the proceedings of the Courts of that Colony are on file in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton New Jersey, and often examined with much interest by Antiquarians.

The following is a copy of the translation above mentioned as made in 1684.

The RECORD is indebted to Mr. GEORGE C. MASON of Newport, R. I. for the following sketch:

The little that we know of the African Slave Trade is confined almost exclusively to the traffic carried on subsequent to the Act of 1794, prohibiting the importation of slaves, with, perhaps, an outline (embracing a few general facts in the form of statistics) confined in great part to the traffic that was renewed by the Americans after the Declaration of Peace. Just prior to the Revolution the trade was in its most flourishing state; and when, in 1784, trade

and commerce once more fell into the old channels, the fleet-sailing vessels of New England revived a traffic that had enriched the colonists, and which promised extraordinary returns after the long interruption occasioned by the war. The Colonists had not only been countenanced in the traffic by the mother country, but were encouraged by the throne and stimulated to the utmost activity by competitors in England, France and Spain. John Hawkins had been honored with knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, for making known to his countrymen "that negroes were

very good merchandize in Hispaniola, and that stores of them might easily be had in Guinea." The King of Portugal, enthusiastic over the exploits of Gonzales, had styled himself "Lord of Guinea." Charles V. no less elated at the prospect of large returns, granted an exclusive patent to a chosen few to supply his possessions in the West Indies with negroes. Las Casas gave this measure the weight of his influence, and with it the countenance of the Church; and the English "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" (which supplied our infant settlements with religious instruction) found itself in the enjoyment of a plantation in Barbadoes, and under the necessity of purchasing fresh hands from time to time, to keep up the stock. King James, as Queen Elizabeth had done, granted a patent to a company of traders on the coast of Guinea. William and Mary, taking a broader view of the field so unexpectedly developed, made the African

Slave Trade free to all. But it was not till the signing of the treaty of Utrecht that the flood gates were opened wide. By that treaty England engaged to carry out the contract of the old French Guinea Company, and thus pledged herself to import into the new world, in the space of thirty years, one hundred and fortyfour thousand slaves! Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that the colonists were called upon to do their part in the great work of freighting negroes from the coast of Africa.

By all, the trade in negroes was deemed alike proper and legitimate. It had its advocates at the bar and in the pulpit. In the eyes of the manufacturer it had a commercial value that could hardly be estimated, and the philanthropist saw in it the means of enlightening a race plunged in heathen darkness.' Birmingham and Manchester got up wares suited to the new market, and the arts were not behind the

trades, for Stothard painted "the voyage of the Sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies," and a member of Parliament made the dusky queen the subject of his

muse:

"Her skin excell'd the raven's plume,
Her breath the fragrant orange bloom,
Her eye the tropic beam:
Soft was her lip of silken down,
And mild her look as evening sun

That gilds the Corbre stream." The trade was wholly unorganized at the time when the American Colonies first took part in it, and it remained so till near the close of the last century, often proving disastrous to those engaged in it. It was, in fact, a scramble on the coast for slaves, as the following letter from the Captain of a slaver will show :

After my Respects to you, these may Inform how it is with me at pres'nt. I bless God I Injoy my health very well as yett, but am like to have a

long and trublesum voyage of it, for there never

was so much Rum on the Coast at one time before. Nor y like of ye french ships was never seen before, for ye whole Coast is full of them, for my part I can give no guess when I shall get away, for I purchest but 27 slaves since I have been here, for slaves is very scarce: we have had nineteen sails of us at one time in y Rhoad, so that those ships that used to carry pryme slaves off is now forsed to take any that comes: heare is 7 sails of us Rume men that we are ready to devour one another, for our Case is Desprit. Sr. I beg that you will Exist my famely in what they shall want, for I no not when I shall git home to them myself. I have had the misfortin to Bury my chefe mate on y 21st of Sept. and one man more, and Lost the negro man Prymus and Adam over board on my pasedge, one three weeks after another: that makes me now very weke handed, for out of what is left thair is two that is good for nothing. Capt. Hamond has bin heare six months and has but 60 slaves on bord. My hearty servis to your spouse and famely. I am y'rs to Com

JOHN GRIFFEN.”

It was not till a sharp competition and after repeated losses that the lesson taught by experience was turned to account-till pens were erected and factors established at accessible points, with depots of supplies suited to the wants of the natives, who gathered the slaves in the interior and When brought them bound to the coast. all this was done, complaints like the