ARARAT, the culminating point of the Armenian plateau, 17,000f t. above the sea. The massif of Ararat rises on the north and east out of the alluvial plain of the Aras, here from 2,5ooft. to 3,00o ft. above the sea, and on the south-west sinks into the plateau of Bayezid, about 4,5ooft. It is thus isolated on all sides but the north-west, where a col about 6,900f t. high connects it with a long ridge of volcanic mountains. Out of the massif rise two peaks, "their bases confluent at a height of 8,800ft., their summits about 7m. apart." The higher, Great Ararat, is "a huge broad-shouldered mass, more of a dome than a cone"; the lower, Little Ararat, 12,84oft., is "an elegant cone or pyramid, rising with steep, smooth, regular sides into a comparatively sharp peak" (Bryce). On the north and west the slopes of Great Ararat are covered with glittering fields of unbroken neve. The only true glacier is on the north-east side, at the bottom of a large chasm which runs into the heart of the mountain. The great height of the snow line, 14,000f t., is due to the small rainfall and the upward rush of dry air from the plain of the Araxes. The mid dle zone of Ararat, 5,000-11,5ooft., is covered with good pas ture, the upper and lower zones are for the most part sterile. There is poetical fitness in the legend that Ararat was the resting place of Noah's Ark, inasmuch as this mountain is about equally distant from the Black Sea and the Caspian, from the Mediter ranean and the Persian Gulf. Round Mt. Ararat gather many tra ditions connected with the Deluge. The Garden of Eden is placed in the valley of the Araxes; Marand is the burial-place of Noah's wife; at Arghuri, a village near the great chasm, was the spot where Noah planted the first vineyard, and here were shown Noah's vine and the monastery of St. James, until village and monastery were overwhelmed by a fall of rock, ice and snow, shaken down by an earthquake in 184o.
From the Armenian plateau Ararat rises in a graceful isolated cone far into the region of perennial snow. It was long believed by the Armenian monks that no one was permitted to reach the "secret top" of Ararat, with its sacred remains, but on Sept. 27, 1829, Dr. Johann Jacob Parrot (1792-184o) of Dorpat, a Ger man in the employment of Russia, set foot on the "dome of eternal ice." Ararat has since been ascended by a number of climbers, among them D. W. Freshfield (1868), James Bryce (1876), A. V. Markov (1888), P. Pashtukhov and H. B. Lynch (1893). There are a number of glaciers in the upper portion, and the climate of the whole district is very severe. The greater part of the mountain is destitute of trees, but the lower Ararat is clGthed with birches.
Both Great and Little Ararat consist entirely of volcanic rocks, chiefly andesites and pyroxene andesites, with some obsidian. No crater now exists at the summit of either, but well-formed para sitic cones occur upon their flanks. There are no certain historic records of any eruption. (See also ASSYRIA.) J. F. W. von Parrot, Reise Zum Ararat (1834) ; Mor. Wagner, Reise nach dem Ararat (1848) ; H. Akich, Die Besteig ung des Ararat (1849) ; D. W. Freshfield, Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan (186g) ; A. H. Sayce, "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Lake Van" in Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, vols. xiv. (1882) , xv. (1888), and 1893 ; J. Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 4th ed. (1896) ; Sir G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique, tome iii. Les Empires (Paris, 1899) ; J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bib,'e (19oo) ; H. B. Lynch, Armenia (19o1) .