This mountain, which is highly worthy of our notice as the one on which
the ark rested, is, by the general consent of western Asia and of
Europe, decided to be the mountain of Ara Dagh in Armenia; and that this
opinion is correct, would seem plain from the statement of the Bible
that Ararat _was_ in Armenia, taken in connection with the fact, that in
all that country there is no mountain comparable to this. It is in all
respects a most noble mountain, and one of the finest in the world.
“When our eyes first beheld it,” says Kitto, “we had already seen the
loftiest and most remarkable mountains of the old world; but yet the
effect of the view of _this_ mountain was new and surprising. The reason
appeared to be this, that most of the loftiest mountains of the world
are but peaks of the uppermost ridge of mountain chains; but Ararat,
though not so high as many of these, is far more grand and impressive,
because it is not merely the summit of a ridge, but a whole and perfect
mountain.” “Nothing,” as Mr. Morier well remarks, “can be more beautiful
than its shape, or more awful than its hight; all the surrounding
mountains sink into insignificance when compared with it. It is perfect
in all its parts; having no hard, rugged features, and no unnatural
prominences; but everything is in harmony, and all combines to render it
one of the sublimest objects of nature.” It rises from the valley of the
river Aras, the ancient _Araxes_, gradually towering from its broad
base, till it reaches the region of perpetual snow, (which is about
one-third below its summit,) when it becomes more conical and steep, and
is surmounted with a crown of ice which glitters in the sun with
peculiar brightness. And near to this peak, and rising from the same
broad base, is another almost exactly like it, but smaller, which is
doubtless the reason why the sacred text speaks of “the _mountains_ of
Ararat,” rather than of a single mountain. The tallest of the two is
seventeen thousand, seven hundred and fifty, and the lowest thirteen
thousand, four hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea, which
is some three thousand feet lower than the plain on which Ararat stands.
The top of the mountain, it is said, was never reached till 1829, when
Mr. Parrot, a German, succeeded in climbing to it, and there found a
slightly convex, and almost circular plain, some two hundred and twenty
feet in diameter, declining steeply on all sides; from which some
suppose, that the ark must have rested on the lesser Ararat, as it would
have been difficult for its inmates, including heavy cattle, to have
descended from the higher summit.
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