DELISLE — d'aNVTLLE, 
40S 
while the Abiad, confounded with the Maleg, ap- 
pears as a much inferior stream. This delineation 
is preserved in all his subsequent maps. 
While, however, Delisle had made this remark- 
able correction upon the position of Abyssinia, he 
had not lost that abhorrence of a mcuum which 
had ever been prevalent in the minds of geogra- 
phers. He could not reconcile himself to acknow- 
ledge his ignorance, as to the contents of the 
space out of which he had withdrawn Abyssinia. 
He filled it up, by extending, far eastward, the 
frontier of Congo. In particular, the large branch 
of the Congo, which flows from south to north, 
is made by him to flow from east to west, and 
thereby reaches across more than half the conti- 
nent. All the other features being stretched in 
like manner, the vacant space was filled up, and 
the dreaded appearance of a void effectually co- 
vered. 
In consequence of these erroneous views. De- 
lisle lost on one side a part of what he had gained 
on the other. It was D'Anville who first " laid 
" the axe to the root of the tree.'" In his map, 
(I731), prefixed to Labat's EtJiiopie Occidentaley 
he boldly exposed to the world the vast extent of 
that Terra Incognita, which occupies the whole 
interior of this part of Africa. The public hav- 
ing recognized the correctness and fairness of this 
proceeding, geographers were no longer afraid to 
