DELISLE, WILLIAM, a French geographer of great celebrity in his own day, was born at Paris in 1675. His inclination for the pursuit in which he afterwards because so eminent, was displayed at an early age, and he made considerable proficiency in the art of can strueting maps before he was nine years old. This taste was induced and carefully cultivated by his father, who appears to have been also much devoted to geographical and astronomical pursuits. In 1699 he published a map of tho world, which, with other maps and disserta tiona on geography, led to his election as a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1702; and soon afterwards he was appointed geographer to the king, with a pension. Indeed several of his works were written for the use of his royal pupil, in tho course of instruction which he condescended to receive from Dolisle.
Deliele'e celebrity was not only so great in his own country that no work of history or travel was considered complete without his maps, but it extended all over Europe. He had several flattering invitations
from the monarchs of other countries to remove to their capitals; and l'eter the Great paid him a personal visit at Paris, to attempt to induce him to go to Russia. All these offers he rejected, but he gays l'oter an excellent series of maps of his immense dominions. Fonts, idle, in his Eloge,' says that the geographer knew their limits better han their owner did himself; and it was probably the respect enter ained for him by the Czar that led to his brother Joseph being ,ppointed to take charge of the observatory at St. Petersburg, with a Try considerable salary.
In 1726, Delisle died of apoplexy, aged fifty-one. The most valuable of his writings may be seen in the Memoirs of the French academy ; but any list of them is unnecessary here.