Isso, é claro, é facilmente explicado pelo fato de que a geografia completa da Terra Média Ocidental evoluiu durante a escrita do SdA (consulte o HoME 7 (a Traição de Isengard) para os mapas e a discussão dessa evolução). / p> O que nós sabemos é que mais a leste há (ou era) o Mar Interior de Helcar, além do qual estão (ou mentiram) os Orocarni (Montanhas Vermelhas, ou Montanhas do Leste). . No entanto, como afirma o Silmarillion:
In the changes of the world the shapes of lands and of seas have been broken and remade; rivers have not kept their courses, neither have mountains remained steadfast...
Assim, mesmo que os mapas antigos permaneçam válidos para a Primeira Idade, eles não devem ser considerados válidos para idades posteriores.
Há mais alguma informação no Akallabeth; antes da Queda;
Thus it was that because of the Ban of the Valar the voyages of the Dunedain in those days went ever eastward and not westward, from the darkness of the North to the heats of the South, and beyond the South to the Nether Darkness; and they came even into the inner seas, and sailed about Middle-earth and glimpsed from their high prows the Gates of Morning in the East.
Durante:
For Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made...
E depois disso:
And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said: 'All roads are now bent.'