parrot's ascem' of araTvAt. 1S9 



pltshed, about a quarter past three on the 27th of September (9th of Oc- 

 tober,) 1839, WE STOOD ON THE TOP OF ArARAT. 



What I first aimed at and enjoyed was rest-, f spread out my cloak, 

 and sat down on it. { found myself on a gently vaulted, nearly cruci- 

 form surface of about two hundred paces in circuit, which at the margin 

 sloped oft' precipitously on every side, but particularly towards the 

 southeast and northeast. Formed of eternal ice, without rock or stone 

 to interrupt its continuity, it was the austere, silvery head of Old Ararat. 

 Towards t!ie east, this summit extended more uniformly than elsewhere, 

 and in this direction it was connected by means of a flattish depression, 

 covered in like manner with perpetual ice, with a second and somcvyhat 

 lower summit, distant apparently from that on which 1 stood above half 

 a mile, but in reality only 397 yards, or less than a quarter of a mile. 

 This saddle-shaped depression may be easily recognised from the plain 

 of the Araxes with the naked eye, but from that quarter it is seen fore- 

 shortened ; and as the less elevation stands foremost, while the greater 

 one is behind, the former appears to be as high as, or even higher than 

 the latter, which from many points cannot be seen at all. M. Fedorow 

 ascertained by his angular measurements, made in a northeasterly direc- 

 tion from the plain of the Araxes, that the summit in front is seven feet 

 lower than that behind or farther west ; to me, looking from the latter, 

 the difference appeared much more considerable. 



The gentle depression between the two eminences presents a plain 

 of snow moderately inclined towards the south, over which it would be 

 easy to go from one to the other, and which may be supposed to be the 

 very spot on which Noah's ark rested, if the summit itself be assumed 

 as the scene of that event, for there is no want of the requisite space, 

 inasmuch the ark, according to Genesis, vi. 15, three hundred ells long 

 and fifty wide, would not have occupied a tenth part of the surface of 

 this depression. Kerr Porter, however, makes on this subject a subtle 

 comment favorable to the opinion that the resting-place of the ark was 

 not on the summit of the mountain, but on some lower part of it ; be- 

 cause in Genesis, viii,, 5, it is said, "On the first day of the tenth month 

 the tops of the mountains came forth;" but in vi., 16, it is stated that 

 the window of the ark was above ; consequently, Noah could have seen 

 only what was higher than the ship, which was therefore lower down 

 than tlie tops of the mountains : on these grounds Kerr Porter is incli- 

 ned to look upon the wide valley between the Great and Little Ararat 

 as the place where the ark rested. In this reasoning, however, he takes 

 the above quoted texts of Holy Writ in a sense different from the literal 

 cue ; for it is nowhere said that Noah saw the mountains coming forth, 



