_Pan_, nor does it prove that _Hōōs_ was in the local dialect, which, in 1652, was certainly Mahican or Mohegan. Still, it cannot be said that the tradition was not familiar to all Algonquians in their mythical lore. Heckewelder's tradition, "The Naked or Hairless Bear," has its culmination at a place "lying east of the Hudson," where the last one of those fabulous animals was killed. "The story," writes Dr. Brinton, "was that the bear was immense in size and the most vicious of animals. Its skin was bare except a tuft of white hair on the back. It attacked and ate the natives and the only means of escape from it was to take to the waters. Its sense of smell was remarkably keen, but its sight was defective. As its heart was very small, it could not be easily killed. The surest plan was to break its back-bone; but so dangerous was it that those hunters who went in pursuit of it bade families and friends farewell, as if they never expected to return. The last one was tracked to Hoosink, and a number of hunters went there and mounted a rock with precipitous sides. They then made a noise and attracted the beast's attention, who rushed to the attack with great fury. As he could not climb the rock, he tore at it with his teeth, while the hunters above shot him with arrows and threw upon him great stones, and thus killed him." [FN] * * * * * [FN] "The Lenape and their Legends." The Hoosick River flows from its head, near Pittsfield, Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, through the Petersburgh Mountains between precipitous hills, and carries its name its entire length. Fort Massachusetts, in the present town of Adams, Mass., was on its borders and in some records was called Fort Hoosick. It was captured by the French and their Indians in 1746. The general course of the stream is north, west, and south to the Hudson in the northwest corner of Rensselaer County, directly opposite the village of Stillwater, Saratoga County. There are no less than three falls on its eastern division, of which the most considerable are Hoosick Falls, where the stream descends, in rapids and cascades, forty feet in a distance of twelve rods. Dr. Timothy Dwight, who visited it in the early part of the 19th century, described it as "One of the most beautiful rivers in the world." "At different points," he wrote, "The mountains extend their precipitous declivities so as to form the banks of the river. Up these precipitous summits rise a most elegant succession of forest trees, chiefly maple, beech and evergreens. There are also large spots and streaks of evergreens, chiefly hemlock and spruce." Though, with a single exception, entered in English records by the name of "Hoosick or Schaahkook's Creek," it was, from the feature which especially attracted Dr. Dwight's attention, known to the Iroquois as the _Ti-oneenda-howe,_ or "The river at the hemlocks." [FN] * * * * *