Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20129089

This is the most famous map by celebrated French cartographer Guillaume De Lisle. The accuracy of De Lisle's cartography accounts for its primacy, as he obtained his information directly from French explorers. One of the first printed maps to name Texas, it was a seminal depiction of the Mississippi that was enormously influential on subsequent cartography of the region. Indeed, Kohl states this is the mother and main source of all later maps of the Mississippi. This map was the first to reflect accurately the routes of Hernando de Soto, Henry de Tonty, and Louis de St. Denis. Because of its accurate information on the Mississippi and its tributaries, this map served throughout the eighteenth century as the prototype for most subsequent renderings of that great river.