rested. Some of them assure us that some remains of the ark were to be seen on these mountains so late as the time of Alexander the Great; that in the neighbourhood there was a town called Cemain, or Shemain, thought to be an allusion to the Hebrew word, which signifies eight. from the eight persons who came out of the ark; also that the very place where these persons came out of the ark was called by a name which denoted that event.

4. Again, and particularly, the Latin Vulgate, Gen. viii. 4, for the mountain of Ararat, reads the mountains of Armenia. The authors of the Greek version of the LXX, and, after them, the Vulgate, render the word Ararat, in 2 Kings xix. 37, and Isa. xxxvii. 38, by the same word, and our translators have followed their example :- "And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech, and Sharez, his sons, smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia :”—in the Hebrew it is Ararat.

It is indeed maintained by some, that, while the mountains of Ararat were situated in Armenia, they extended far beyond it; and that the part of them on which the ark rested is not that which is called the Gordiæan mountains, but Mount Caucasus, which lies between the Euxine and Caspian seas. The principal argument by which they attempt to support their theory, they derive from Gen. xi. 2, where the descendants of Noah are said to have journeyed from the east, till they found a plain in the land of Shinar, where they dwelt. Hence they maintain, that the situation where the ark rested must lie east of Shinar; Mount Caucasus, say they, is east of it, but the Gordiæan mountains lie considerably westward.

During the prevalence of the waters of the deluge, there would be, as we have seen, two considerable currents, proceeding from the Euxine and Caspian

seas. These proceeding southward, would prevent the ark reaching so far north as Mount Caucasus.

The difficulty presented, by the passage just quoted, to the Gordiæan mountains being the part of Mount Ararat on which the ark rested, is in appearance, and not in reality. These mountains were indeed north of Babel; still, however, Moses might say of the descendants of Noah, that, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain," or, as it would be more correctly rendered, a valley, " in the land of Shinar." For the plain or valley, extending itself up quite to the mountains of Ararat, or Armenia, which bound the northern part of Mesopotamia, as soon as Noah and his family descended from the Gordiæan mountains into the level country on the south, they were full east of the upper or northern parts of the land of Shinar; and, therefore, as they journeyed from the foot of the mountains toward the upper part of the land of Shinar, it may be truly said of them, and that in the most literal sense, that, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar.*

Ararat has been described by those who have visited it as a sublime and venerable mountain. It forms an angle of an immense range of mountains, and is crowned by two summits, on the loftiest of which the natives of the country believe that part of the ark still remains. One of its great features is the immense chasm which extends nearly half-way down it, over which impends a cliff that is discernible at a very considerable distance, and whence enormous masses of ice are from time to time precipitated into the abyss, with a noise resembling the loudest thunder. The description which Ker Porter has given of this remarkable mountain, and the adjacent country, may not improperly find a place here. When this traveller first beheld the

*Vide Wells' Hist. Geog.

† Travels, vol. i. p. 178, et seq.

double summit of Ararat (in the month of November, 1817), its height did not appear to him so extraordinary. "From the elevation of the spot where I stood, and the numerous mountains, though inferior to it, that' obstructed my view, its appearance did not strike me in the way I had expected. But the true effect, like that in my perfect sight of the Caucasus, after a similar disappointment, was only postponed. Proceeding southeast for nearly forty wersts, at the extremity of a very long valley, we arrived at the ruins of a caravansary, where we halted an hour to rest our horses. At this place a pleasant change presented itself both in the face of nature and the state of the atmosphere. The universality of the snow had been gradually disappearing during our last day's journey; and the unencumbered heights began to shoot out a little grass. Here, the opening of the valley showed still less of white and more of green; and the air, though cold, had something of a spring-like elasticity, a no unnecessary cordial to the traveller who reaches this point from the cheerless tract we had just passed over. In fact, during our whole march from the valley of Kotchivan till we arrived at the caravansary, we had seen neither man nor beast out of our own little band: and the dead aspect of all objects around, assisted the impression of our being in some vast depopulated wilderness." But he goes on to say, a little after,

"On leaving our halting place, a fuller view of the great plain of Ararat gradually expanded before us, and the mountain itself began to tower, in all its majesty, to the very canopy of heaven. It bore south-east from the line of our caravansary. We now took a descending position due east, over a stony and difficult road, which carried us, for more than ten wersts, through several close and rocky defiles, and over as many frozen streams, till we reached a small Mahometan village on the side of the Moschian hills.-We set

forth over a road as bad as that of the day before, in a direction south-east, and gradually descending from a great height, through a very extended sloping country, towards the immense plain of Ararat."

"As the vale opened beneath us in our descent, my whole attention became absorbed in the view before me. A vast plain, peopled with countless villages; the towers and spires of the churches of Eitchmaiadzen arising from the midst of them; the glittering waters of the Araxes, flowing through the fresh green of the vale, and the subordinate range of the mountains skirting the base of the awful monument of the antediluvian world. It seemed to stand a stupendous link in the history of man, uniting the two races of the men before and after the flood. But it was not until we had arrived upon the flat plain that I beheld Ararat in all its amplitude of grandeur. From the spot on which I stood, it appeared as if the hugest mountains of the world had been piled on each other to form this one sublime immensity of earth, and rock, and snow. The icy peaks of its double heads rose majestically into the clear and cloudless heavens; the sun blazed bright upon them, and the reflection sent forth a dazzling radiance equal to other suns. This point of the view united the utmost grandeur of plain and height. But the feelings I experienced, while looking on the mountain, are hardly to be described. My eye, not able to rest for any length of time upon the blinding glory of its summits, wandered down the apparently interminable sides, till I could no longer trace their vast lines in the mists of the horizon, when an inexpressible impulse immediately carrying my eye upwards, again refixed my gaze upon the awful glare of Ararat and this bewildered sensibility of sight being answered by a similar feeling in the mind, for some moments I was lost in a strange suspension of the powers of thought."

Ararat contains two heads, one much more lofty than

the other; or from the same base arise two mountains, similar in shape and proportions, but of vastly unequal magnitudes. It is the opinion of our author, and the opinion is a very probable one, that on neither of these heads did the ark rest, but in the space between them.

To the description of this stupendous mountain thus furnished by Ker Porter, may be added those of other travellers. 66 Nothing," says Mr. Morier,* " can be more beautiful than its shape; more awful than its height. Compared with it, all the other mountains sink into insignificance. It is perfect in all its parts; no hard rugged feature : no unnatural prominences: every thing is in harmony: and all combines to render it one of the most sublime objects in nature. Spreading originally from an immense base, its slope towards the summit is gradual, until it reaches the regions of the snow, where it becomes more abrupt. The cone is surmounted with a crown of ice, which glitters in the sun with a peculiar and dazzling brightness. As a foil to this stupendous work, a smaller hill rises from the same base, near the original mass, similar to it in shape and proportion, and in any other situation entitled to rank among the high mountains. The mountain is divided into three regions of different breadths. The first, composed of a short and slippery grass, or sand, as troublesome as the quicksands of Africa, is occupied by the shepherds; the second, by tigers and crows: the remainder, which is half the mountain, is covered with snow, which has been accumulating ever since the ark rested upon it; and these snows are concealed during one half of the year, in very dense clouds." This stupendous mountain, Mr. Morier and his party endeavoured to scale; and, after excessive fatigue, arrived on the margin of eternal snow. But they found it impossible to proceed, and penetrate the highest region; and not easy to go back. At length, utterly exhausted,

* Travels in Persia, vol. i. pp. 306, 307, 309.