TRUE VOLCANOES. 361 



hiu'h." In point of height these mountains stand between 

 Cotopaxi and Mont Blanc. The Great Ararat (Agri-dagh), 

 ascended for the first time on the 27th September, 1829, by 

 Friedrich von Parrot, several times during 1844 and 1845 

 by Abich, and lastly in 1850 by Colonel Cbodzko, is dome- 

 shaped, like Chimborazo, with two extremely small eleva- 

 tions on the border of the summit, but without any crater 

 at the apex. The most extensive and probably the latest 

 pre-historical lava-eruptions of Ararat have all issued below 

 the limit of perpetual snow. The nature of these eruptions 

 is two-fold ; they are sometimes trachytic with glassy feld- 

 spar, interspersed with pyrites which readily weather, and 

 sometimes doleritic, composed of labradorite and augite, like 

 the lavas of Etna. The doleritic lavas of Ararat are con- 

 sidered by Abich to be more recent than the trachytic. The 

 points of emission of the lava-streams, which are all beneath 

 the limit of perpetual snow, are frequently indicated (as, for 

 example, in the extensive grassy plain of Kip-ghioll, on the 

 north-western slope) by eruptive cones and by small craters 

 encircled by scoriae. Although the deep valley of St. James 

 which extends to the very summit of Ararat, and gives a 

 peculiar character to its form, even when seen at a distance, 

 exhibits much resemblance to the Yal del Bove on Etna, and 

 displays the internal structure of the Dome, yet there is this 

 striking difference between them, that in the valley of St. 

 James massive trachytic rock alone is found, and no streams of 

 lava, beds of scori* or rapilli. 69 The Great and Little Ararat, 

 the first of which is shown by the geodetic labours of Wasili 

 Fedorow, to be 3'4" more northerly and 6'42" more westerly 

 than the other, rise on the southern edge of the great plain 



58 Elburuz, Kasbegk, and Ararat, according to communications 

 from Struve, Asie Centrale, t. ii, p. 57. The height of the extinct 

 volcano of Savalan, westward of Ardebil, as given in the text is 

 founded on a measurement of Chanykow. See Abich in the Melanges 

 Phys. et Chini, t. ii, p. 361. To save tedious repetition in the citation 

 of the sources on which I have drawn, I would here explain that 

 everything in the geological section of Cosmos, relating to the impor- 

 tant Caucasian isthmus, is borrowed from manuscript essays of the 

 years 1852 and 1855 communicated to me by Abich in the kindest 

 and friendliest manner for my unrestricted use. 



59 Abich, Notice Explicative d'une Vue de Ararat, in the Bulletin de 

 la Soc. de Geographic de France, 4eme s^rie, t. i, p. 516. 



