Me ts “ 
Notices respecting New Books. 67 
graphical position ef the former. With respect to, the latter, it 
is required to be understood that it is the point uniformly alluded 
to when speaking of the plains of Shinar in the future parts of 
this inquiry. 
** With regard to the situation of Ararat, even many of the 
pious fathers seem to have paid too much attention to legendary 
tradition, and too little to the pure fact: for it is certainly not 
reconcileable to good faith in Moses to say, that Mount Ararat, 
where the ark rested, is north, or north-bearing~west, of Shinar, 
when he has so explicitly said, that the people came thither from 
the east: and how learned and orthodox commentators could ‘ 
ever have been persuaded to adopt the mountain called Ararat, 
in Armenia, as ¢ the landing place,’ is very unaccountable, as 
there is nothing but ¢he name and traditionary report to au- 
thorize such a conjecture; and this quite contrary to the express 
words of Moses. That Ararat was eastward of Shinar, as the 
- divine historian hath told us, there are many circumstances to 
show; but there can be no true judgement without evidence: 
therefore we will proceed to examine the authorities on both 
sides of the question. 
“ Epiphanius, Basil, Jerome, Eusebius, Berosus, Josephus, 
Nicholas Damascenus, and more, mention reports that part of 
the ark was to be seen in their times on the Gordiean mountains 
which are in the south of Armenia: and the last-mentioned of 
them says ‘that there is a mountain in Armenia called Baris, 
which in the Coptic language signifies a ship, ‘ whither,’ as the 
tradition goes, * some persons escaped in an ark, from the great 
flood ; and that pieces of the wood were there seen for many 
ages after,’ 
“ Now the positive testimony of either of these men would 
have been weighty; but the xeports which they have listened to 
are nothing more than fume. 
“¢ Elmasinus says, ‘he went up Mount Gordus and viewed 
the place where the ark rested,’ but does not say he saw the 
ark there, 
** There are other similar accounts in Bochart, Josephus, 
Wells, &c. but they are all equally superficial and unsatisfactory. 
“ Herbert says, ‘that the highest mquntain in Armenia is 
called Baris ;’ which he imagines is also called Damoan—‘ that 
it is between Armenia and Media—that he and his company rode 
up to the top, whence they had a prospect of the Caspian Sea, 
though 160 miles off—that there are numbers of Jews about the 
village of Damoan at the foot of the mountain, who say they 
are the offspring of those transported thither by Salmonassar, 
2 Kings xvii. 6—that they have never changed their seats, and 
that they have a constant tradition that the ark rested upon the 
2 mountain,’ 
