country, which is inserted in the Meerut Observer:-"The mountains of Armenia (he must of course except Ararat) are clothed with the finest timber, the hills with vines, and the plains with orchards. In the months of January and February deep snow falls, and the rivers are frozen. In April milder weather sets in, and it is warm in the plains. During the months of May and June the rains prevail, and during July, August, and September, the wealthier inhabitants ascend the neighbouring mountains, and live in tents, until they descend to gather in the grape harvest. They plough their fields a foot and a half or two feet deep with an iron-shod plough called kootân, and a team of five pairs of oxen. They begin to prepare the ground for sowing in March, and the corn harvest begins in August. Their houses are two and three storeys high, some few of pucka, others built of wood; from the roof of the sitting apartments below are suspended in rows, upon a light wooden framework, their various kinds of grapes and fruits dried. Breakfast, called almoosah, is a dejeuné à la fourchette. They eat kubaub, and drink brandy (keenee). At twelve o'clock they partake of another larger meal, consisting of kubaub, pilaw, with different kinds of wines. In the evening they pay visits, and partake at one another's houses of rum-punch, tea, dried fruits, and sweetmeats. Their houses in the winter are warmed by stoves and flues. In the long days of the year they take a siesta, or short sleep, after dinner in the lower room of the house, but at night they sleep up stairs. Their cattle are larger than those of Hindostan, and there is abundance of fine deer in the woods. Their chief line of commerce is through Astrachan, and along the shores of the Caspian."

Ascent to the Summit of Mount Ararat. In the account of this stupendous mountain, so venerable in sacred story, it is mentioned that the alleged ascent of Ararat by two German travellers had not been sufficiently authenticated, and that it was more than probable

Mr Morier's observation was correct, that " no man in modern times has ascended it." Whether the statement respecting the exploit of the German travellers be correct or not, it is impossible to say; and certainly Mr Morier is justified in asserting that no man, previous to his visit, had accomplished the ascent. But it now appears that it has been actually done in 1829. An account of this great achievement is inserted in the Asiatic Journal, which, as it is of considerable importance, ought not to be omitted. The expedition for scaling the hitherto inaccessible summit of Ararat was projected by Professor Parrot, of the University of Dorpat, a town of Russia in the province of Livonia and Government of Riga, the University of which was founded by Alexander, Emperor of Russia. The party consisted of the projector, Professor Parrot, who undertook to defray the expenses out of his own private funds, and four students of the University of Dorpat, selected by him for the astronomical department, zoology, botany, and other branches of natural history. An imperial courier was attached to the expedition by order of the Russian Government, to accelerate its operations and promote its objects, and General Count Paskevitch, governor of the Russian-Armenian province of Erivan, was directed to give it every facility.

The travellers, having made the proper arrangements, left Dorpat about the middle of March 1829, crossed the river Don at Tcherkask, and traversed the steppes of the Cossacks, taking their elevations by the barometer as far as the salt lakes in the neighbourhood of the Manich river. In May they reached Mozdok on the Terek, the former boundary of Russia, and arrived at Tiflis in the beginning of June, where they halted for some time on account of receiving intelligence that the plague was raging in Erivan. Professor Parrot and his assistants employed their time there in making repeated experiments with the pendulum and needle; the latter were

repeated four times every twenty-four hours. The intensity of the magnetic needle at Tiflis, compared with experiments at Dorpat, was found to be 0.933, the mean inclination 55° 33', the declination to the west 3° 31'. They made an excursion to a mountain in the Caucasian Kakhethi, the valleys and mountains of which swarm with Lesghi banditti to such a degree, that the party were obliged to be accompanied by a well-armed force of three hundred men, commanded by a chief of Kakhethi.

They left Tiflis on the 1st of September, and reached the monastery of Etchmiatzin on the 8th, where they were hospitably received by the venerable Armenian Patriarch, ninety-three years old, the archbishops, archimandrites, &c.; and a young deacon of the convent agreed to accompany them to Ararat. On the 10th they set out on their formidable undertaking, crossed the Araxes, and arrived on the night of the 11th at the convent of St Gregory on the lower slope of the mountain. This desolate dwelling was tenanted by an aged archimandrite, who suffered with Christian resignation the maltreatment of the Persians. The number which the expedition brought to this isolated dwelling caused an extraordinary bustle.

Their first attempt to scale the mountain was on the east, but after reaching the height of two thousand one hundred and sixty-six toises above the level of the sea, it was evidently impossible to reach the summit on that side by reason of the steepness of the icy surface. After this failure, M. Parrot, by the advice of a peasant of Argure or Agri (the modern name of Ararat, being Agri Dagh, or Mountain of Agri, which M. Parrot says signifies plantations of vines, and which he refers to Noah), a neighbouring village, determined a few days after to try the north-west side, accompanied by two of his students, Mess. Behagel and Schlieman, the Armenian deacon Abojan, two foot soldiers, a Cossack, and five people from the village. The first day they reached the limit of perpetual snow, where

they bivouacked for the night. At break of day they started for the summit, trusting to reach it before noon; but by that time they had ascended only five hundred toises of perpendicular height, making an altitude altogether of two thousand six hundred toises. There was a farther ascent of three hundred toises, or eighteen hundred English feet, to the summit, and perceiving fogs and clouds collecting about the mountain, which towards night would discharge their burden of snow, the travellers thought it prudent to descend, after having planted in the snow a large wooden cross, which the archimandrite had blessed before their departure, with an inscription on it in the Latin language. "Ararat," says M. Parrot, in a letter written immediately after the failure of his second attempt, "appears to be an immense mass of lava. From twenty versts, or thereabouts, to the perpetual snow, we saw in both our ascents and in all our excursions nothing but lava. We have discovered no crater of ordinary shape, if we do not consider an enormous chasm on the north-west side to be one. All over the mountain there is not a single tree; around the convent a few fruit trees are planted, but they scarcely deserve the name of bushes. The armies of serpents and carnivorous animals with which we were threatened have disappeared; at all events they did not molest us. Kurds do not molest Ararat on this side, and the plague is completely extinct."

The

On the 25th of September M. Parrot made a third and successful attempt, accompanied by the deacon Abojan, who proved a robust and intrepid man, five peasants, and two Russian soldiers. They reached the crest of the mountain on the 27th, about three in the afternoon. "The difficulties," says M. Parrot, "were numerous, and I owe much, perhaps the entire success, to the zeal of the two soldiers and one of the peasants, the other four being unable to follow us. From the first step we set upon the frozen snow to the summit, we were obliged to cut step by step with a hatchet holes for our feet to rest in, which were

more necessary to us in descending than in our ascent; for the coup d'ail extending from this height over an immense tract scarfed with ice, broken by deep and dark precipices, presented something really startling, even to me, accustomed to such undertakings. Upon this occasion, as upon our second attempt, the weather was as favourable as could be. We passed the night amidst this region of frost, in an atmosphere so calm and serene, that I scarcely felt the cold which in other circumstances is so severe at such an altitude. The moon kindly guided our doubtful steps on the cone of ice, when after sunset we found ourselves still very far above the region of perpetual snow."

The height of the summit above the level of the sea, by the barometer, is about two thousand seven hundred toises. The limit of perpetual snow is about two thousand toises—an extraordinary elevation for that latitude, and which M. Parrot attributes to the circumstance of Ararat being an isolated mountain, the temperature of which is not lowered by other mountains in the neighbourhood.

This farther acquaintance with Ararat furnished M. Parrot with nothing but lava; no other volcanic productions occurred. "We may regard it," he remarks, "as one of the greatest volcanoes, and possessing this remarkable peculiarity that it is situated equidistant about eighty leagues from the Black and Caspian Seas; it should consequently be considered as a mediterranean volcano. It is astonishing to see numerous rocks of lava raised above the rest, like masses that have been liquified, and then hardened and fixed in the air." M. Parrot planted a cross five feet high upon the very summit, "as a signal," he says, "of the Christian religion, which will shortly enlighten all these countries. In one of the churches of the Patriarchal convent of Etchmiatzin a piece of the Ark is preserved, which is said to have been brought down from the summit by the melting of the snow." M. Parrot, however, is silent respecting the remnants of

the Ark; it may therefore be presumed that none were found, and that the last imaginary relic was transported to the church alluded to, the owners of which will doubly prize its acquisition.

A conjecture has been started by Sir R. K. Porter respecting the precise part of Ararat on which the Ark rested, which is here submitted to the reader, in concluding this sketch of Armenia, without any comment. That traveller informs us that a second view of the summits of the Great and Little Ararat suggested the idea which first occurred to him, that on the subsiding of the Deluge the Ark rather sunk down gradually with the receding waters to between the towering peaks into the broad haven of the bosom of Ararat, than grounded on either of them. This opinion, of course, presupposes that the immense chasm which divides the Little from the Great Ararat is a natural appearance, and not of volcanic origin, yet Sir R. K. Porter himself bears testimony to its volcanic appearance, so satisfactorily proved by M. Parrot, when he says in another part of his large work, "that there are volcanic remains to a vast extent around Ararat every person who visits its neighbourhood must testify." He refers to the sixth and eighth chapters of the Book of Genesis, and he alleges that the Mosaic account favours his supposition. Moses describes the Ark as being built with a single window, and he places it above, or on the top: "A window shalt thou make in the Ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it, above; and the door-way of the Ark shalt thou set in the side," Gen. vi. 16. "The sacred historian," observes Sir R. K. Porter, "goes on in the eighth chapter to describe that, after 'the waters assuaged, and returned from off the earth continually, the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Here we have mountains specified as the place of its haven, not the mountain, as denoting a single summit. Therefore, as the holy ship could not rest on both peaks (the Great and Little Ararat), the account must necessarily mean that its rest was

on the bases of the two great uniting mountain piles of Ararat, which plain reading would bring it into the broad mountain valley between these immense pyramidical summits. After it has thus found a haven, the description proceeds to say, that the tops of the mountains were seen; and it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the Ark.' By the tops of the mountains being seen when he opened the window (which we were before led to understand was in the roof of the Ark, and therefore could command an upward view only), the summits Noah then saw must have been above the Ark, from its position, there not being a possibility of his seeing beneath it. And if such be the right understanding of the text, it certainly establishes my idea, that the Ark gently descended with the subsiding flood into the great mountain vale between the two peaks, and thence, when the returning dove appeared with the olive branch, and the unstrung bow shone in the cloud from that protecting tent of the Lord, the fathers of all the future families of mankind took their downward way, not with the brand of incensed justice impelling them, but called by almighty mercy to be fruitful, to multi-. ply, and to replenish the earth.""

It is proper, however, to observe, that the Ararat of Armenia, notwithstanding the universal tradition in its favour, to which we strenuously adhere, has been denied by some recent writers to be the real scene of the descent of mankind after the subsiding of the Deluge. Among other places, a lofty mountain in Phrygia is called Ararat, or has a name somewhat similar; and it is alleged, from some allusions in the ancient Sibylline verses, some traditions which are still believed, and some old medallions recently discovered, containing rude representations of the Ark, that the town of Apamea or Apamia in Phrygia, built by Antiochus Soter, is commemorated in a very ancient medallion in reference to that event. "Tradition," says Mr Arundell, "has honoured Apamea by connect

ing it with an event which produced more important changes in the world than earthquakes the General Deluge. In the Sibylline verses, which, though probably spurious, are very ancient, we are told that Mount Ararat, on which the Ark rested, is on the confines of Phrygia, at the sources of the river Marsyas; and hence it is supposed that Apamea was called Apamea Kibotos, or Apamea the Ark, distinguishing it from other cities of the same name. • The Ark,' says Bochart, 'a little while after the subsiding of the waters of the Deluge, is said by Moses to have rested upon the mountains Ararat. In what part of the world are these mountains? The Sibylline verses decide the question. 'On the frontiers of Black Phrygia rises a lofty mountain called Ararat.' If, then, we may believe the Sibyl, Mount Ararat is in Phrygia, and if we would know the precise spot in Phrygia, she will tell us it was at the sources of the great river Marsyas.' If you are still incredulous, the Sibyl will kindly offer her personal testimony to the fact, and you may admit she is a competent witness; she tells you that she is no less a personage than the daughter-in-law of Noah, whether wife of Shem, Ham, or Japheth, does not appear, and was of the happy number who escaped the destroying waters. It is this tradition which is supposed to be preserved in the curious medals of Alexander Severus, Macrinus, and Philip. These medals have all the same type, and represent two personages in a sort of chaise without wheels, or ark. This rests upon a rock surrounded by water; a dove, or some other bird, is seen plying towards the ark with a branch of olive in her mouth, and another bird is perched upon the ark. Two persons are standing in front of the ark. The name of the city is at full lengthΑΠΑΜΕΩΝ. But the strange part is yet untold. In front of the ark are the letters NOE! and we must therefore designate the gentleman and lady within the ark by the name of the Patriarch and his better half." It has been generally admitted,

and Mr Arundell does not deny the fact himself in his observations, that the term kibotos (xBwrds), which means an ark or coffer, was applied to this town of Apamea to distinguish it from others of the same name, of which there were five, because it was the mart or common treasury of those who traded from Italy and Greece to Asia Minor. "Nevertheless," says the editor of Calmet's Dictionary, quoted by MrArundell, "that this was one of the commemorative notices of the Ark and the Deluge (alluding to the ancient medallion) may be admitted, in the sense that traditionary shrines or memorials of the Ark were very ancient, and that journeying direct from Shinar or Babylon, here one of the arks, commemorative of the original Ark, rested and settled at once-that is, here the Arkite worship was commenced before it spread over the neighbouring country. Kibotos is apparently not a Greek term, and it might be the name of the temple in which commemoration was made of the Ark, and of the preservation of mankind by it." This conjecture may be admitted, without being particularly anxious as to the original or etymological meaning of the word kibotos; and the observation of Mr Arundell is unquestionable, that " many cities boasted of such memorials, and referred to them as proud proofs of their antiquity, and of their settlement in early ages."

A writer in a popular periodical (Fraser's Magazine, March 1834), in a paper entitled "Noah's Journal of the Ark," advances a new theory, which deprives both Apamea and Armenia of being the resting-place of the Ark. We extract the following passage, the arguments of which Mr Arundell declares to be "convincing," as a specimen of this ingenious speculation, without, however, being equally "convinced," like the learned and indefatigable writer alluded to, whose recent works have done much to explain and elucidate the ancient history of the interesting countries through which he has travelled: "The most elevated diluvian phenomena hitherto

discovered appear to be those on the summit of Mont Blanc, fifteen thousand feet above the level of the ocean, and at an altitude of sixteen thousand feet on the Himalayan range, each exceeding three miles an extraordinary coincidence of level at an interval of four thousand geographical miles. These phenomena, if admitted, therefore, directly exclude Mount Ararat in Armenia from the Noachic Journal, although we have the high authority of Berosus the Chaldean for fixing the scriptural Ararat there. Julius Africanus, however—a very high authority on such subjects-observes, The waters having subsided in spring, the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, which we know to be in Parthia, while others contend for Mount Celænus or Black Phrygia, both places known to me from having seen them. Armenia seems here unthought of. Advancing in the direction pointed out by Africanus, a little farther eastward we encounter the Thibetian range, the most elevated region on earth, in which Captain Webb procured fossil bones found embedded in diluvian gravel at an elevation of sixteen thousand feet; and to this neighbourhood the text of Gen. xi. 2. would seem to direct us to the site of Ararat, in conformity with the general opinion of the philosophers of our age, rather than to Armenia:- And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the Land of Shinar, and dwelt there.' It is clear that, if Noah's posterity came to the banks of the Euphrates from the east, Armenia, north-west of Babylon, was not the second cradle of mankind. The extraordinary fertility of this range, and of the intervening table-lands at elevations which, according to all the isothermal tables, ought to be covered with perpetual snow, now directs us to this region as that of all others on the face of the earth where the olive leaf might have been obtained at the vast altitudes of the Ark's restingplace. The line of perpetual congelation is here at an elevation of not less than seventeen thousand feet, or one thousand