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of M. Littré's great work. He gives aboteau and says that it is a word used in Saintonge with the signification of a dyke. To call in question so eminent an authority may be presumptuous; but it may be remarked as a very singular circumstance that, if used at all in France in Diéreville's day, it should have been regarded, as it evidently was regarded, by him in the light of a peculiar, local and new word. And why have not its derivation and its orthorgraphy been long since settled and commonly understood in Old France and in Canada?

The only one of our English dictionaries in which I have found it, is "The Century," where it is given in this curt and unsatisfactory way: "Aboideau or Aboiteau (of uncertain French origin): A dam to prevent the tide from overflowing the marsh. (New Brunswick)." This statement does not add much to one's knowledge of the word. But our modern, or more recent, compilers and editors of English and of French lexicons, although some of them, doubtless, have been very learned men, are not, as a class, particularly perspicacious persons.

The derivation and meaning of the prefix abat afford a subject worthy of investigation. In all the instances cited, and always, the word bears with it the sense of something constructed or contrived as a defence or protection against the action of a substance in motion, or in resistance to a force of some kind. This inherent sense seems to connect it readily with "abée,"—from which, indeed, it may have been formed. It appears, too, to be nearly related to abattre—to beat off, or keep off,—to abois, to the abatis used in fortification, and to our abate.

It may, however, be entirely independent of any affinity with those words.

There rises before me the possibility of a very