1876 British Viscount & Ambassador James Bryce - Noah's Ark Search

160 THE EXPLORERS OF ARARAT
Armenian historians of mountains emitting fire and smoke—this is alleged to have happened in A.D. 441—and of
darkness prevailing for thirty days, but they do not point to Ararat in particular, and are too vague to enable us to set
any store by them. A German traveler named Reineggs alleges that in February 1785, from a great distance to the
northeast, smoke and flames were seen to issue from Ararat, but nobody has believed his entirely unconfirmed
assertion. No other volcano in these countries, or indeed in Western Asia at all, can be shown to have been active
within time of human memory, although, as has been said already, there are hundreds of extinct volcanic chimneys
between Constantinople and Afghanistan. It is only in hot springs, naphtha wells, sometimes in those bubbling pools of
mud which are called mud volcanoes, and which occur at both ends of the Caucasus, and now and then in a solfatara,
a hollow or crevice emitting vapors which deposit sulfur, and, above all, in earthquakes, that the presence of the
terrible subterranean forces reveals itself.
One of the most remarkable features of Ararat is the surprising height of the line of perpetual snow. This, which in
the Alps averages 8500 to 9000 feet, which in the Caucasus varies from 10,000 feet on the southwestern to 12,000
feet on the northern slopes, rises here to nearly 14,000 feet. It is, of course, different on different parts of the mountain;
lower on the northwest, not only because the sun does not strike there with such force, but also because the slopes
are more gentle. They descend, as I have said, in broad terraces, which are covered with glittering fields of unbroken
névé, while on the steeper southeast declivity the snow appears chiefly in vast longitudinal beds, filling the depressions
between the great rock ridges that run down the mountain, giving it, as Parrot has remarked, the appearance, from a
distance, “of a beautiful pointed collar of dazzling white material on a dark ground.” One at least of these rock ridges
continues bare of snow to within a hundred feet of the summit, a fact which cannot be completely explained by their
inclination, since it is not always too steep to permit snow to lie, nor even by the fact that they are mostly covered by
loose volcanic blocks, off which snow melts more readily than from a smooth, solid surface; it is probably, therefore, to
be also referred, as Abich suggests, to the decomposition of the minerals contained in the rock. The lowest point at
which I noticed a permanent snow-bed on the exposed southeast side is about 12,000 feet above the sea; but in the
deep dark valley on the northeast of the mountain, which is sometimes called the Great Chasm [Ahora Gorge],
sometimes the Valley of St. Jacob, from the little monastery aforesaid, the snow descends even lower. Here is to be
found the only true glacier on the whole mountain, those glaciers of which the older travelers talk as seen on its upper
sides being either mere beds of névé or, in one or two instances on the northwest slope, what are sometimes called
glaciers of the second order. In the chasm, however, there is not merely an accumulation of masses of half melted ice
that have fallen from the prodigious ice-wall that fringes the top of the cirque in which this chasm ends, but really a
glacier [called the Black Glacier extending up to the Araxes Glacier], small and almost covered with blocks and stony
rubbish, but with the genuine glacier structure, and united to the great snow mass of the mountain above by one or two
snow-filled glens which run up from its head. It is nearly a mile long, and from 200 to 400 yards wide, with its lower end
about 8000 feet, its upper nearly 10,000 feet above the sea-level, and bearing a moraine.
The great height of the snow-line on Ararat, which seems extraordinary when we compare it with the Alps or the
Caucasus, which lie so little farther to the north—Ararat is in latitude 39º 42’, Elbruz in latitude 43º 21’, Mont Blanc in
latitude 45 50’—becomes easy of explanation when it is remembered how many causes besides distance from the
equator govern the climate of any given spot. The most powerful influence in determining the point at which snow
remains through the year is the rainfall. It is the greater moisture of the air that fixes the snow-line on the outer
Himalaya, immediately north of the Bay of Bengal, at about 14,000 feet above the sea, while, as one advances north
into Tibet, it rises steadily in the drier air, till it reaches 19,000 feet. So on the part of the Caucasus which looks
towards the Black Sea, and receives the south-western rains coming thence, the snow-line is 2000 feet lower than on
the colder, but far drier, northeastern slopes. Now Ararat stands in an exceptionally dry region, whose rainfall is only
10 or 12 inches in the year.
The upward rush of air from the plain produces another phenomenon on Ararat, which is the first thing to strike
every observer. The top is generally, at least during the months of summer and autumn, perfectly clear during the night
and till some time after dawn. By degrees, however, as the plains begin to feel the sun, their heated air mounts along
the sides of the mountain, and, when it reaches the snow region, is condensed into vapor, and forms clouds. Springing
out of a perfectly clear sky, usually about three or four hours after sunrise, these clouds hang round the hill till sunset,
covering only the topmost 3000 feet, constantly shifting their places, but never quite disappearing, till sunset, when
they usually vanish, the supply of hot air from below having stopped, and leave the peak standing out clear and sharp
in the spotless blue. So it stands all night, till next morning brings the envious clouds again. The phenomenon is just
the same as that which those who climb the Southern Alps, to gain a view over the plains of Italy, have so often noted
and reviled; one sees it to perfection in Val Anzasca, where the southeast face of Monte Rosa is nearly always cloudwrapped
after 11 AM. Here, however, it seems even stranger, for the other mountains round the Araxes plain, being
unsnowed, remain perfectly bare and clear; through the whole sky there is not a cloud except round this one snowy
cone. It is a phenomenon, which the explorer of Ararat has to lay his account with, and which makes it useless to hope
for a perfect view, except in the early morning.
Although the snow-fields on the mountain are not very extensive, they are quite large enough to supply streams to
water its sides; and the want of such streams is due to the porous character of the volcanic soil. At the height of about
13,000 feet, one finds plenty of lively little brooks dancing down over the rocks from the melting snows. But as they
descend, they get lost in the wilderness of loose stones that strew the middle slopes of the mountain, and are only