Whatever views may be entertained of the doctrine supposed to be taught in Gen. i.-iv. that the whole human race originally descended from a single pair, or whatever method of interpretation in regard to that ancient document may finally prevail--even should we adopt the theory of Dr. McCausland[380] that the Biblical account is concerned only with the origin of a covenant and redemptive race (the Adamite or Edenic race), which was to be the instructor and benefactor of the pre-Adamite races--there can be no question that the sacred historian traces the source of the great historic nations to the family of Noah (Gen. ix. 19). Whatever difficulties there may be in determining the site of Eden--and they are confessedly great, if not insurmountable--there is no difficulty in locating the second geographical centre from whence the great historic races departed to overspread the earth. Ararat is, no doubt, in its Biblical import, the Armenian highlands, the lofty plateau which overlooks the plains of the Araxes on the north and Mesopotamia on the south. This "Armenian plateau stands equidistant from the Euxine and the Caspian seas on the north, and between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea on the south. With the first it is connected by the Acampsis, with the second by the Araxes, with the third by the Tigris and the Euphrates, the latter of which serves as an outlet toward the countries on the Mediterranean coast. These seas were the highways of primitive colonization, and the plains watered by these rivers were the seats of the most powerful nations of antiquity--the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes, and the Colchians. Viewed with reference to the dispersion of the nations, Armenia is the true ὀμφαλος--the middle part--of the earth; and it is a significant fact that at the present day Ararat is the great boundary-stone between the empires of Russia, Turkey, and Persia."[381]