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, _Canastagiowane_ (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 probably 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 would 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 Long-fish place," the Aal-plaat, or Eel-place, of the Dutch. The suggestion by Pearson (Hist. Schenectady) that the name "was properly that of the flat on the north side of the river," is untenable from the name itself. The reading by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan: "From _Oneasti,_ 'Maize,' and _Couane,_ 'Great'--'Great maize field'"--is also erroneous. The generic name for the field or flat was _Shenondohawah,_ compressed by the Dutch to _Skonowa._ In the vicinity of the Aal-plaat was the ancient crossing-place of the path from Fort Orange to the Mohawk castles, in early days regarded as the "Best" as it was the "Most traveled." The path continued north from the crossing as well as west to the castles.