is drawn through the eastern distance, a gently undulating outline, sinking to a dim promontory in the east. Such is the profile and such the appearance of the majestic structure upon which eye and mind dwell. When we come to investigate the underlying principle, we find that, along a line of upheaval which has been uniform in a direction from north-west to south-east, two mountains have been reared by volcanic action, their axes following the line of upheaval and their summits 7 miles apart. The south-eastern slope of the greater mountain and the north-western side of the smaller are contiguous at an altitude of about 8000 feet; they meet, as we have seen, in a fork or valley at an elevation which ranges between 7500 and 8800 feet. In other words, this valley is the point of intersection between the bases of either mountain; and that part of the fabric which lies below it may be regarded as the common foundation of both. But the base of the smaller and more pointed mountain is merged into the base of the larger and less steep; and the forms of the lower portion of the structure continue the contours of Great Ararat as they sweep away to the south-east. The pyramid of Little Ararat rises directly from the upland valley; Great Ararat rises from the floor of the plain. These features lend unity to the whole fabric, and preserve an exactly proportionate relation between the shape and size of the two mountains and the protraction of their basal slopes. The base or foundation of the Ararat fabric gathers immediately from the surface of the plain, advancing ever further into the even country as the weight of the upper structure grows. If the ground plan of the entire fabric may be described as a long elliptical figure of which the axis is from north-west to south-east, then the point at which the base is most developed lies north-east of the summit of Great Ararat, in the latitude of Erivan. When already, along the axis of this figure, we have followed the long-drawn outline from the cape in the distant west to where, beyond the Little Ararat, it slowly falls away into the east, the eye turns naturally to the face of the mountain, and dwells with ever-increasing admiration upon the subtle structural qualities there displayed--the combination of grace with extraordinary solidity, the easy transition from the lower to the middle slopes, and of these to the uppermost seams. From the margin of the marshes which border the right bank of the Araxes the ground commences to incline; yet so gradual is at first the rise that, if we measure on our base plan, we find that it is not more than about 3000 feet within a space of 10 miles. If it be permissible, in the gradual process from one gradient to another, to fix a division between the upper structure and the base, the dividing line may be drawn at an elevation of about 5800 feet, at a distance from the summit of 6 1/2 miles, and of 10 miles from the floor of the plain.