ABBADIE, ANTOINE THOMSON D' and ARNAUD MICHEL D' (1815-1893 ) , travellers, were born in Dublin, of a French father and an Irish mother. The parents re moved to France in 1818. In 1835 the French Academy sent Antoine on a scientific mission to Brazil, the results being pub lished in 1873 under the title of Observations Relatives et la phy sique du globe faites au Bresil et en Ethiopie. The younger Ab badie spent some time in Algeria before the two brothers started for Abyssinia in 1837, landing at Massawa in Feb. 1838. Af ter collecting much information on the geography, geology, archae ology and natural history of Abyssinia, the brothers returned to France in 1848.
The younger brother, Arnaud, paid another visit to Abyssinia in 1853. Antoine became involved in various conttoversies relat ing both to his geographical results and his political activities in Abyssinia. Time and the investigations of subsequent explorers have shown that Abbadie was quite trustworthy as to his facts, though wrong in his contention that the Blue Nile was the main stream. The topographical results of his explorations were pub lished in Paris in 186o-73 in Geodesie de l'Ethiopie. Of the Geo graphie de l'Ethiopie (189o) only one volume has been published. Un Catalogue raisonne de manuscrits ethiopiens (1859) contains a description of 234 Ethiopian manuscripts collected by Antoine. He published numerous papers dealing with the geography of Abyssinia, Ethiopian coins and ancient inscriptions. His Recon naissances magnetiques (1890) is an account of the magnetic observations made by him in the course of several journeys to the Red Sea and the Levant.
The general account of the travels of the two brothers was pub lished by Arnaud in 1868 under the title of Douze ans dans la Haute-Ethiopie. Antoine died in 1897, and bequeathed an estate in the Pyrenees, yielding 40,000 francs a year, to the Academy of Sciences, on condition of its producing within fifty years a cat alogue of half a million stars. His brother Arnaud died in 1893.
'ABBAHU, the name of a Palestinian rabbi who flourished c. 279-32o. 'Abbahu encouraged the study of Greek by Jews. He is very often cited in the Talmud.