(French.) This word is of frequent occurrence in books that relate to the Rocky Mountain and Oregon regions, "where," says Col. Frémont, "it is naturalized, and if desirable to render into English, there is no word which would be its precise equivalent. It is applied to the detached hills and ridges which rise abruptly, and reach too high to be called hills or ridges, and not high enough to he called mountains. Knob, as applied in the Western States, is their most descriptive term in English; but no translation or paraphrasis would preserve the identity of these picturesque land-marks."--Exped. to the Rocky Mountains, p. 145.
Sir Geo. Simpson in his "Overland Journey round the World," when traversing the Red River country, west of Hudson's Bay, speaks of a conspicuous land-mark in the sea of plains, known as the Butte aux Chiens, ... towering with a height of about four hundred feet over a boundless prairie as level and smooth as a pond.--Vol. I. p. 54.