onfess this to be too extensive
for us to explain in a few lines, although we do not hesitate to say,
that a more amusing book upon abstruse subjects has scarcely ever met
our attention. It is literally filled with facts and closely-packed
inquiries, and these are so attractively arranged as to amuse a listless
reader.

_The Ark of Noah and Mount Ararat._

"It has been supposed that the ark rested on Mount Ararat in Armenia:
Josephus countenances this view of it, and it is interesting to observe,
that the name of the Armenian city where it has been supposed the ark at
last grounded, signifies the _Place of Descent_, from the Greek [Greek:
aporataeeion]:--others have, however, urged that it rested upon Mount
Caucasus, near Apamea, in Phrygia, from the circumstance that in Genesis
xi. 2, the sons of the patriarch are represented as journeying westward
from the place of descent, and Mount Ararat in Armenia being _west_ of
this country. The language of the sacred writer does not particularly
define the question. Mount Ararat, according to Morier, is at once awful
in its elevation, and beautiful in its form. Sir Robert Ker Porter
describes this celebrated mountain as divided, by a chasm of about seven
miles wide, into two distinct peaks, called The Great and The Little
Ararat, and is of opinion that the ark finally rested in this chasm.
This pleasing and elegant writer gives a beautiful description of
Ararat. 'I beheld Ararat in all its amplitude of grandeur. From the spot
on which I stood, it appeared as if the hugest mountains of the world
had been piled upon each other, to form this one sublime immensity of
earth, and rock, and snow. The icy peaks of its double heads rose
majestically into the clear and cloudless heavens; the sun blazed bright
upon them, and the reflection sent forth a dazzling radiance equal to
other suns. This point of the view united the utmost grandeur of plain
and height, but the feelings I experienced while looking on the mountain
are hardly to be described. My eye, not able to rest for any length of
time on the blinding glory of its summits, wandered down the apparently
interminable sides, till I could no longer trace their vast lines in the
mists of the horizon; when an inexpressible impulse immediately carrying
my eye upwards again, refixed my gaze on the awful glare of Ararat; and
this bewildered sensibility of sight, being answered by a similar
feeling in the mind, for some moments I was lost