1 Eight years before the first recorded ascent of Ararat by Dr. Parrot
(1829), there appeared the following from “Travels in Georgia,
Persia, Armenia, and Ancient Babylonia,” by Sir Robert Ker Porter,
who, in his time, was an authority on southwestern Asia: “These
inaccessible heights [of Mount Ararat] have never been trod by the
foot of man since the days of Noah, if even then; for my idea is
that the Ark rested in the space between the two heads (Great and
Little Ararat), and not on the top of either. Various attempts have
been made in different ages to ascend these tremendous mountain
pyramids, but in vain. Their forms, snows, and glaciers are
insurmountable obstacles: the distance being so great from the
commencement of the icy region to the highest points, cold alone
would be the destruction of any one who had the hardihood to
persevere.”