Smith, and other early writers, the spelling being modified to conform more nearly with modern English orthography and phonetics.

Aposon-"a beast in bignes like a Camatin'g-six.

pig and in tast alike " (opossum). Camzowa'n-rain.

Aracu'n-"a beast like a fox" Cheawanta-"a robin red-breast."

(raccoon).

Arrokoth-the sky.

Chechinkamin-chinkapin.

Chehip-bird.

Asaqueth-"the clay they make Checomaw'-muscle shell.

Hanguequi'ns - "a little stone Neppawngunnu-blood.

Moccasin ("mawhcasun ")-shoe. Pemanataon-thread, cord.

Sacaho'ok-"the cleere stones we Weputtahoc-a stake.

JAMES MOONEY, Chairman of Committee.
WM. H. BABCOCK. W. HALLETT PHILLIPS.
W. H. HOLMES.

LESTER F. WARD.

The above report was read at a meeting of the Anthropological Society and discussed by Mr. W J McGee, Mr. Spofford, Librarian of Congress; District Commissioner Douglass, Mr. Edward Goodfellow, Mr. F. C. Somes, James Mooney, and others. Mr. Douglass expressed his warm approval of the suggestions and general recommendations embodied in the report. Mr. Spofford advocated the substitution of another alphabetic series in place of the present

letter names on the ground of liability of confusion between B and P, M and N, etc.

The most important suggestion was that of Mr. F. C. Somes, who proposed to call all principal city thoroughfares numbered streets, having those running in one direction to bear even numbers, while those running at right angles to them would be called after the odd numbers. This plan, which seems feasible, would obviate all possibility of confusion between streets and avenues of the same number, together with the necessity of using the term street or avenue in connection with the number in every case, and the only apparent objection is that it would necessitate a readjustment of the names of the present numbered streets.

There being no objection, the report was declared adopted.

THE NAVEL IN LOCAL NAMES.-The origin of the words for navel in the different languages of the world presents many curious facts. So we notice that in Germanic languages it is the diminutive of nave and Nabe, the center of a wheel or shield, the words navel and Nabel being the "small-sized center of the belly"—and in Latin umbo forms a diminutive umbilicus, the small boss or central eminence of any round body, and of the abdomen as well. In one of the earliest monuments of Greek poetry we see the corresponding word palos applied in describing an island of the sea, the isle of Ogygia, the home of the nymph Kalypso, who lived (Odyssey I, 50) "on an island surrounded by the oceanic floods, where the navel of the sea is” (νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅδὶ ἔμφαλος ἔστί δαλασσης). Many have been searching for the position of this (certainly mythic) island, which, as is stated in the passage, lay in the middle or center of the main, and when its elevation above the briny surface had to be pointed out, could with propriety be likened to a knob or boss of the sea. A commentator of Homer, Eustathius, who lived in the tenth century of our era, declared Ogygia to be the very center of the Atlantic and of the whole watery element. A round stone in the Delphian temple of Apollo was called the navel as marking the middle point of the earth (Pindar, Pyth. IV, 131; VI, 3), and by this term an altar in the city of Megara was also known. From the round stone in the Delphian temple the term omphalos passed over to the city of Delphi itself, for it became known at large as "the center of the inhabited world." Roman authors called it umbilicus terrarum and umbilicus Græcia after their Greek authorities, who