hoofs, and a bristly mane extending along the whole of its back."

"In 1806, Mr. Michael Adams, of Petersburgh, hearing of the circumstance, repaired to the spot, where having arrived, he found the skeleton entire, one of the fore feet excepted, though nearly stripped of its flesh. The vertebræ, from the head to the os coccygis, one of the shoulder blades, the pelvis, and the remaining three extremities, were still held firmly together by the ligature of the joints, and by strips of skin and flesh. The head was covered with a dry skin. One of the ears, well preserved, was covered with a tuft of bristles. These parts could not avoid receiving some injury during their removal to Petersburgh, a distance of 6875 miles; the eyes, however, are preserved, and the pupil of the left eye is still distinguishable. The tip of the under lip was eaten away, and the upper being destroyed, the teeth were exposed. The brain, which was still within the cranium, appeared dry. The parts least damaged were one of the fore feet, and one of the hind: these were still covered with skin, and had the sole attached to them. According to the Tungoose chief, the animal was so corpulent and well fed, that its body hung down below the knee joints. It was a male, but had neither tail nor trunk. From the structure of the os coccygis, however, Mr. Adams is persuaded that it had a short thick tail. Schoumakoff always persisted in asserting that he never saw any appearance of a proboscis; and it does not appear probable that his rude draughtsman would have omitted such a striking feature, if there had been one. The skin (three-fourths of which is in the possession of Mr. Adams) was of a deep grey colour, and covered with reddish hair, and black bristles. More than 40lbs. weight of them, that had been trodden into the ground by the bears, were collected, and many of them were two feet four inches long. The head weighs 460lbs. ; the two horns, each of which is nine feet and a half long, weigh 400lbs. ; and the entire animal measured ten feet and a half high, by sixteen and a half long. The tusks are curved in the direction opposite to those of the elephant, bending towards the body of the animal. Mr. Adams adds, that he found a great quantity of amber on the shores."

This curious and circumstantial account, which has all the marks of veracity, is transcribed from a foreign journal by the Christian Observer, March, 1808, p. 198.

12. In the heart of North America, also, some years ago, in a salt marsh near the river Ohio, were dug up several skeletons of animals of enormous size. One tooth, belonging to a large row, weighed upwards of eleven pounds. A thigh bone of a quadruped was found in the same place, which was more than four feet in length. Buffon, Nat. Hist. Tom. IX. These, corresponding to the preceding account, seemed to have belonged to the mammouth, of which the species probably was extinct after the deluge.

13. In the year 1783, a huge skeleton, probably of this kind, was discovered in a marl-pit, under a peat moss, surrounded by a stratum of sea-shells, and other marine productions, on the lands of Doctor Percy, Bishop of Dromore, in Ireland. The horns were seven feet and one inch long; the length of the skull one foot eleven inches; the breadth of the forehead above the eyes, eleven inches. All the bones were of a gigantic size, not in the least petrified, but as fresh as if the animal had only died a week before. Miln's Physico-Theological Lectures, p. 299.

These instances seem fully sufficient to establish the universality of the deluge, and its general progress northwards from the southern polar regions.

At what season of the year the deluge began, has been much disputed, whether in Spring, or in Autumn. The same arguments adduced in the Chronological Apparatus, to prove that the world was created in Spring, concur to intimate, that the "second month," when the deluge began, was reckoned by the sacred year, which began about the vernal equinox. And in addition to them, the history of the deluge itself seems to furnish internal evidence in favour of this opinion: for near the end of his confinement, the dove, sent forth by Noah out of the ark, brought him back, in her mouth, "an olive-leaf plucked off," (we may presume, with the ancient versions) from a green branch, which could only correspond to the season of Spring. And a great naturalist, Woodward, declares: "Among all the remains of the antediluvian world, I have found such a uniformity, and general consent, that I was able to discover what time of the year it was that the deluge began. The whole tenor of these bodies, thus preserved, clearly pointing forth the month of May. Nor have I ever met with so much as one single plant, or body, among all those vast multitudes which I have carefully viewed, that is peculiar to any other season of the year, or any

thing that falls out earlier or later; or any of them short, or further advanced in growth, seed, or the like, than they now usually are in that month." Miln. p. 321. These arguments seem to be decisive.

By a special providence, the ark, upborne by the flood, which continued to encrease for 150 days, then rested upon the neighbouring "mountains of Ararat." And immediately the waters began to abate from thenceforward, till the surface of the earth was dry, and fit for the residence of Noah's family. The ark probably was flat-bottomed, that it might the more easily take the ground; and if, when loaded with all its freight, it sunk to half its depth, 15 cubits, it would just touch the summit of Ararat, at the same elevation of water above it, which is remarkably recorded in Scripture to be the height to which it rose above the highest hills," fifteen cubits" for the highest," and upwards" for the lower.

Thus, under the guidance and protection of the Almighty, the ark was no longer tost to and fro by every wind, and buffeted by the most tremendous and frightful billows that ever raged, but rested on the ground steady and immoveable for the remainder of the deluge, and for ever after.

The fall of the deluge was more gradual than its rise. Though the waters sunk below the level of the high table land of Armenia, in the course of seven months and ten days more that Noah remained in the ark, yet it was probably a length of time before the waters all retired again into "the fountains of the great abyss," their former reservoirs, so as to leave the continents dry, as at the creation, the weight of the incumbent waters lessening as they sunk.

Thus did GOD, who "founded the world upon the seas," at the creation, "establish it upon the floods," at the deluge.

ARARAT, IN ARMENIA.

The determination of the site of this famous mountain is of considerable importance in Sacred Geography. The prevailing tradition in the east is, that it lies in the greater Armenia, near the borders of the ancient Media, from which it is separated by the rapid river Araxes, winding round its base on the north and east, until it falls into the Caspian sea.

Mount Ararat, according to Major Rennel's excellent map of

the ancient Persian empire, Geography of Herodotus, p. 229, lies in 39° 30′ north lat. and 44° 30' east long. nearly in the middle of the vast ridge of Taurus, that " stony girdle encompassing the earth," as aptly described by the Arabian geographers, which runs eastwards from Cilicia through the whole extent of Asia, for Ararat lies nearly midway between the southern extremities of the Euxine and Caspian seas.

This relative position is confirmed by SCRIPTURE. The prophet Jeremiah (li. 27.) represents as contiguous to each other, "the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz." But Ararat is rendered Armenia by the Syriac and Vulgate versions of Gen. viii. 4. and by the Septuagint, Arabic versions, and Chaldee paraphrase of Isaiah xxxvii. 38. followed in the latter passage by our English Bible. Minni denotes the lesser Armenia westwards of the former; and Ashkenaz, the ancient Phrygia, thence called Ascania, bordering on the Black sea; which was afterwards metamorphosed by the Greeks into AEevoç, "the inhospitable sea," and by a more flattering appellation again into Evevoç, "hospitable;" whence the present Euxine, according to Bochart's ingenious conjecture, Vol. I. p. 173, 174.

This great mountain, called by the Armenians, at present, Macis, or "the Mother of the World," and by the Turks, Agridah, or "the Great Mountain," is counted the highest in all Armenia, and probably in the world, if we consider its central position nearly between the great oceans, the Atlantic and Eastern, in the midst of the united continents of Europe and Asia. Herodotus reckoned the northern branch of " Caucasus," running between the Euxine and Caspian seas, "the greatest and highest of all mountains." B. i. § 203. But Ararat probably is higher; for whereas the snow remains on the other mountains of Armenia, which furnish the springs of the Euphrates, Araxes, and Tigris, but ten months of the year; on this, or rather the highest of its two tops, the western, the snow is permanent, and the summit covered with eternal snows, continually increasing from the time of the deluge; as we learn from Tournefort's entertaining and instructive Voyage to the Levant, Vol. III. p. 104, 195.

And, indeed, its greater elevation is confirmed by Scripture: for from the day when the waters began to decrease, as soon as

*William de Rubruquois, who travelled in 1253, mentions a town called Cemainim, or "the Eight," and they called the mountain near it, Masis, or "the Mother of the World." Howard, p. 121.

the ark grounded on the summit, "on the seventeenth day of the seventh month," until "the tops of the neighbouring mountains were seen on the first day of the tenth month," was an interval of 73 days, or ten weeks and three days; consequently, its superiority of elevation must have been considerable, to require so long a time for the sinking of the waters to their level. This superiority may justly be estimated by the distance from the top of the mountain to the limit of permanent snow, which, according to Tournefort, reaches half way down. The snowy region, according to his account, is absolutely inaccessible, by reason of its steepness. Few travellers, whose curiosity may lead them to explore it, can reach even to the limit of the permanent snow, on account of the great labour and difficulty of the ascent through sliding sands, which are daily increasing, and furnish the most barren and frightful desert imaginable, and from the danger of being devoured by tygers, which infest its lower region.

So great is the veneration of the Armenians for this mountain, that as soon as they can see it, (and it is so lofty that it can be seen at the distance of ten days journey) they kiss the earth, and repeat certain prayers, making the sign of the cross. They verily believe that the ark rested on its summit. The old patriarch of Armenia, who resided at Erivan, about two days' journey from the mountain, northward, when applied to for guides thither by Tournefort and his company, told them, that "God had never yet favoured any one with a sight of the ark, except only one saint of their order, who, after fifty years spent in fasting and prayer, was miraculously carried thither, but was so seized by the excessive cold that he died at his return." Vol. III. p. 183. Thus was it wisely ordained by Providence, that the ark should at length become inaccessible, and buried under perpetual snows, that it might not become an object of idolatrous veneration!

This mountain stands by itself, in the form of a sugar-loaf, in the midst of one of the greatest plains to be seen, stretching northward and westward, principally, as far as Erzerum, which is nine days' journey from thence, and is seated between two beautiful streams that form the heads of the Euphrates, and which spring from mountains to the north and east, little inferior in height to the Alps. P. 94, 101.

The great elevation of the level of Armenia is proved from