The fabric of Ararat composes an elliptical figure with an axis from north-west to south-east. The base plan measures about 28 miles in length, and about 23 miles in width. The fabric is built up by two mountains: Great Ararat (16,916 feet above the sea) and Little Ararat (12,840 feet). Their bases are contiguous at a level of 8800 feet, and their summits are 7 miles apart. Both are due to eruptive volcanic action; but no eruption of Ararat is known to have occurred during the historical period, and the summit of the greater mountain presents all the appearance of a very ancient and much worn-down volcano with a central chimney or vent, long since filled in. I have already described the summit region of Great Ararat. The estimates or measurements of my predecessors are at variance with one another in detail; but one may assert that it consists of two separate elevations, divided one from the other by a depression some 100 to 150 feet in depth. The more easterly is much the larger, having the character of a spacious platform of saucer-like form. The more westerly presents the shape of a symmetrical cone, when seen from the platform; and is in connection with the snow-laden and almost horizontal bastions at the head of the north-western slope. Both elevations have about the same height; but, if anything, the more westerly is the higher. [108] The reader will be able to distinguish them in my photograph (Fig. 37), as well as to observe how they mingle together as mere crinkles in the crown of the dome. Parrot was inclined to think that the Ark came to rest in the depression between these two elevations. Yielding in height to the most lofty peaks of the Caucasus in the north (Elburz, 18,525 feet), which are visible from the summit, and to Demavend (over 18,000 feet) in the belt of mountains which rise along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, Ararat is by far the loftiest of the mountains of Armenia, and is over 1000 feet more elevated than the highest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc (15,780 feet). Moreover, Elburz and Kazbek, Mont Blanc, and even Demavend, all rise among a sea of mountains, of which they are little more than the highest crests. The isolation of Ararat is not its least interesting feature--a feature which I would fain hope is already imprinted upon my reader's mind. The plains which it overlooks belong to three empires; the frontiers of Persia, Turkey, and Russia meet upon its slopes.