- Notices respecting New Books. 69 
vary in the position of this mountain; so that, if any one of 
them is right, all the others are wrong: and every thing we are 
able to gain from these authors is, in the end, what Moses has 
briefly inforued us; namely—that Ararat was the resting-place 
of the ark. 
“* What in the world could have possessed Mr. Struys? Surely 
it was very tame of such an enterprising traveller to turn back— 
after having surmounted the regions of clouds, and finding him- 
self in’ such a serene climate, not to have visited the stupendous 
hulk ! especially as he had such good surety of its being there, 
and in such excellent repair—not to have explored every corner 
of that mighty carrack, moored su high, which had once con- 
tained snch an inestimable cargo—not to have followed up the 
grand effort, and have pacified for ever the eager solicitude which 
must still hang about this interesting mystery—to come away 
satisfied, after climbing so high, with that bit of splinter—and, 
that piece of stone! 
- € Wells has inserted Ararat in his maps almost duly north of 
Babylon, and nearly sixty miles westward of Erivan; but I have 
no idea upon what authorities. 
** Cellarius says, that most interpreters take the Gordizan 
mountains to be Ararat; and which are either a part of ‘Taurus, 
or near it. In the Targum of Onkelos the mountains of Ararat 
are translated the mountains of Cardu; and in the Targum of 
Jonathan they are rendered the mountains of Kadrun. 
» Many of the other comnientators, whose notions are con- 
fined to Armenia, extend the interpretation, and say, the moun- 
tains of Ararat —the Gordizan mountains --the Armenian moun- 
tains—using the plural, as we find it in Genesis, without pre- 
tending to fix upon any particular tor. But Moses did not speak 
obscurely, nor is it to be allowed that he spoke insignificantly, 
when he said ¢ they journeyed from the east:’ therefore, to be 
ferreting about Armenia, for the sake of a string of contradictory 
rumours, is tantamount to a dereliction of faith, and a gross ab- 
surdity; because it is following rumour rather than fact: and it 
is pretty certain, that rumour can never cause the sun to rise in 
the north, nor the magnet to quit its old propensity. Indeed it is 
almost past suppasition, that rumour should have withdrawn so 
many, from a point so plain and positive, What is categorically 
announced should be literally interpreted :—let us, therefore, try 
the fact against the rumour. 
.*€ In the first place, it is far from unlikely that Ararat is a 
primitive word, which generated out of the particular circum- 
stanec to which it refers; as the opinions respecting its precise 
etymon and signification are as vague aud inconclusive as about 
jts place, We must notice, that Moses applies it extensively, 
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