Jean Baptiste D’Anville was in the early prime of his activity when the Delisles passed off the stage, having been born in 1697, and a long life was before him, for he did not die till 1782, having gained the name of being the first to raise geography to the dignity of an exact science.[143] He had an instinct for physical geography, and gained credit for his critical discrimination between conflicting reports, which final surveys verified. His principal _Carte de la Louisiane_ was issued as “Dressée en 1732; publiée en 1752.”[144] His map of _Amérique Septentrionale_ usually bears date 1746-48; and a new draft of it, with improvements, was published at Nuremberg in 1756. A map made by Dumont de Montigny about 1740, _Carte de la province de la Louisiane, autrefois le Mississipi_, preserved in the Dépôt de la Marine at Paris, is said by Thomassy (p. 217) to be more valuable for its historical legends than for its geography. In 1744 the maps of Nicolas Bellin were attached to the _Nouvelle France_ of Charlevoix, and they include, beside the map of North America, a _Carte de la Louisiane, Cours du Mississipi, et pais voisins_.[145] Bellin’s _Carte des embouchures du fleuve Saint-Louis_ (1744) is based on a draft by Buache (1732), following an original manuscript (1731) preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, in Paris. Bellin also dates in 1750 a _Carte de la Louisiane et des pays voisins_, and in an atlas of his, _Amérique Septentrionale, Atlas maritime_, published in 1764 by order of the Duc de Choiseul, Bellin includes various other and even earlier maps of Louisiana.[146] Thomassy[147] also refers to a MS. map in the Bibliothèque Nationale, _Carte de la Coste et Province de la Louisiane_, dated at New Orleans, October 5, 1746, which is not, however, of much value. There is a “Carte de la Louisiane” in Dumont de Montigny’s _Mémoires historiques de la Louisiane_, vol. i. (1753), a fac-simile of which is given herewith. It perhaps follows the one referred to above. [Illustration: LOUISIANA. (_Dumont._)] There is on a later page a fac-simile of the map, showing the carrying-place between the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys, which appeared in the London (1747 and 1755) editions of Cadwallader Colden’s _History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada_. The controversy over the bounds of the French and English possessions, which was so unproductive of results in 1755, caused a large number of maps to be issued, representing the interests of either side. The French claimed in the main the water-shed of the St. Lawrence and the lakes, and that of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The English conceded to them a southern limit following the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, thence across Huron and Michigan, to the Illinois, descending that river to the Mississippi; and consequently denied them the southern water-shed of the St. Lawrence and most of the eastern water-shed of the Mississippi.