36. Penobscot is a corruption of the Abnaki _pa'na8a'bskek_. A nearly exact translation is "at the fall of the rock," or "at the descending rock." _Vide Trumball's Ind. Geog. Names_, Collections Conn. His. Society, Vol. II. p. 19. This name was originally given probably to some part of the river to which its meaning was particularly applicable. This may have been at the mouth of the river a Fort Point, a rocky elevation not less than eighty feet in height. Or it may have been the "fall of water coming down a slope of seven or eight feet," as Champlain expresses it, a short distance above the site of the present city of Bangor. That this name was first obtained by those who only visited the mouth of the river would seem to favor the former supposition.
37. Dr. Edward Ballard supposes the original name of this stream, _Kadesquit_, to be derived from _kaht_, a Micmac word, for _eel_, denoting _eel stream_, now corrupted into _Kenduskeag_. The present site of the city of Bangor is where Biard intended to establish his mission in 1613, but he was finally induced to fix it at Mount Desert--_Vide Relations des Jésuites_, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 44.
38. The other gentlemen whose names we have learned were Messieurs d'Orville, Champdoré, Beaumont, la Motte Bourioli, Fougeray or Foulgeré de Vitré, Genestou, Sourin, and Boulay. The orthography of the names, as they are mentioned from time to time, is various.
39. _Kennebec_. Biard, in the _Relation, de la Nouvelle France, Relations des Jésuites_, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 35, writes it _Quinitequi_, and Champlain writes it _Quinibequy_ and _Quinebequi_; hence Mr. Trumball infers that it is probably equivalent in meaning to _quin-ni-pi-ohke_, meaning "long water place," derived from the Abnaki, _K8 né-be-ki_.--_Vide Ind. Geog. Names_, Col. Conn. His. Soc. Vol. II. p. 15.
41. _Sagadahock_. This name is particularly applied to the lower part of the Kennebec. It is from the Abnaki, _sa'ghede'aki_, "land at the mouth."--_Vide Indian Geographical Names_, by J. H. Trumball, Col. Conn. His. Society, Vol. II. p. 30. Dr. Edward Ballard derives it from _sanktai-i-wi_, to finish, and _onk_, a locative, "the finishing place," which means the mouth of a river.--_Vide Report of U. S. Coast Survey_, 1868, p. 258.