Mochasko, "Always full;" another river so called in the Sioux. Query, Are these two vernacular? Watapan is river in that language.
Oanoska is a Sioux word, meaning "The Great Avenue or Stretch;" but whether it applies to a river I have forgotten. The quotation is from Long's Expedit. to St. Peter's River, vol. i. p 339., to which I have not access just now. Atamaska and Madagaska are two names of which I can give no account, for the same reason as stated above at Maska.
Arthabaska is (or was) a very swampy township so named, lying south of the St Lawrence.
Maskinonge (also the name of a fish) in which the sound occurs, although not as a termination, is a seigneurie on the north bank of the St Lawrence, of which the part near the river is so low that it is inundated frequently. A river of the same name runs through this seigneurie. Both the foregoing are in the country where the Iroquois language prevailed.
Zoraska, or Zawraska, name of a river somewhere between Quebec and James' Bay, of which I know nothing more, having only heard it spoken of by moose-hunters. Probably it is in a country where the language would be the Montagnard.
Yamaska, a river on the south side of the St. Lawrence, having much marshy ground about it, particularly near its junction with the Grand River.
Kamouraska, or Camouraska, islands in the St. Lawrence below Quebec, taking their name from a seigneurie on the mainland; a level plain surrounded by hills, and dotted all over with mounds. Bouchette says,—
"D'après la position, l'apparence, et l'exacte ressemblance de ces espèces d'îles en terre-firme avec celles de Camouraska, entre lesquelles et le rivage le lit de la rivière est presqu'à sec à la marée basse, le naturaliste sera fortement porté à croire que ce qui forme à présent le continent était, à une époque quelconque, submergé par les vagues immenses du St Laurent, et que les élévations en question formaient des îles, ou des rochers exposés à l'action de l'eau," &c.—Description de Bas-Canada, &c., p. 551.
There can be no doubt, if aska relate to water, that this district is appropriately named.