Note 4 — Chapter XII · ASCENT OF ARARAT

If you strike a direct course from the encampment towards the roof of snow, and, crossing the grain of successive walls and depressions, emerge upon some higher ridge, the numerous ramifications of the lava system may be followed to their source, and are seen to issue from larger causeways which rise in bold relief from the snows of the summit region, and open fanwise down the higher slopes (Fig. 34). In shape these causeways may be said to resemble the sharp side of a wedge; the massive base from which the bank rises narrows to a pointed spine. As the eye pursues the circle of the summit where it vanishes towards the north, these ribs of rock which radiate down the mountain diminish in volume and relief. Their sharp edges commence to cut the snowy canopy about 3000 feet below the dome. It is rather on this south-eastern side of Ararat, the side which follows the direction of the axis of the fabric—the line upon which the forces have acted by which the whole fabric has been reared—that a formation so characteristic of the surface of the summit region at once attains its greatest development, and is productive of a phenomenon which cannot fail to arrest the eye. At a height of about 14,000 feet, a causeway of truly gigantic proportions breaks abruptly from the snow. The head of the ridge is bold and lofty, and towers high above the snow-slope with steep and rocky sides. The ridge itself is in form a wedge or triangle, cut deep down into the side of the mountain, and marked along the spine by a canal-shaped depression which accentuates the descending curve (see Fig. 34). The troughs and ridges, which you will now be crossing, have their origin in this parent ridge; you see it bending outwards, away from Little Ararat, and dividing into branches and systems of branches as it reaches the lower slopes. Whether its want of connection with the roof of Ararat, or the inherent characteristics of its uppermost end, be sufficient evidence to justify the supposition of Abich that this ridge at its head marks a separate eruptive centre on the flank of Ararat, I am not competent adequately to discuss. I can only observe that it is not difficult to find another explanation. It is possible that the ridge where it narrows to the summit has been fractured and swept away. This peak, or sharp end of the causeway, to whatever causes its origin may be ascribed, is a distinguishing feature on the slope of Ararat, seen far and wide like a tooth or hump or shoulder on this the south-eastern side.4