Browsing the website http://archive.org to me is a bit like the Digital Age equivalent of getting lost in a library full of dusty old obscure books. If you don’t share my interests, well, my opening sentence above may have already persuaded you to click off to another more exciting destination. If that’s the case, well, Bon Voyage!

But even I have to admit that a book published around 150 years ago on the geology of New Brunswick wouldn’t be very high on my list of “must-reads”. When you consider that geologists of yesteryear often compiled vocabulary lists in local languages related to the natural environment, though, there is an area of common ground where their interests and mine overlap.

A Preliminary Report on the Geology of New Brunswick by Henry Youle Hind is over 300 pages. Hidden in all those pages are at least two valuable gems. The first is a brief discussion on the etymology of “Acadia” – a topic that has been revisited a number of times by writers such as Eugene Vetromile (see his The Abenakis and their History, for example) and Albert Gatschet in his article “All around the Bay of Passamaquoddy”. Continue reading →