In the beginning of the year of our Lord, 1840, there stood the ancient village of Aicori (vineyards), happy and apparently sheltered in the shadow of the Armenian giant. Not far from the village at the foot of Mount Ararat were situated the old Monastery of St. James and its numerous buildings. But on the twentieth of June, a terrible earthquake shook the mighty mountain from its foundations. The avalanche, of rocks, earth, ice and snow from the mountain sides, rushed swiftly down upon the village and the monastery, the houses and buildings already tottering, crushed them and buried the inhabitants alive--about one thousand in number. The cities Nakhejevan and Erivan did not escape the calamity. In both of these cities also hundreds of houses were thrown down and thousands of lives were lost. The following despatch will show that not only the sword and incendiary fire of the Turk has been pursuing the poor Armenian but even the elements of nature seem to militate against his mundane existence. May the good Lord save him from suffering in the hereafter! PARIS, May 17, 1891.--“The _Dix-Neuvième Siècle_ states that commercial advices have been received at Marseilles from Trebizond to the effect that a new volcano has appeared in Armenia at the summit of Mount Minrod, in the district of Van, vomiting forth flames and lava. The villages at the base of the mountain have been destroyed, and many persons are said to have been killed or injured....” The earliest name of Armenia appears to be Ararat; by that name it was known to the ancient Hebrews, Babylonians and Assyrians. We are told, in connection with the Deluge, that when the waters of the flood subsided “the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” “The geography of Genesis starts from the north. It was on the mountains of Ararat or Armenia that the ark rested, and it was accordingly with this region of the world that our primitive chart begins.”[5]