Note 6 — Chapter XIX · ASCENT OF SIPAN
Reading edition
It will be recognised from the above description that the summit of Sipan is much more basin-like than that of Ararat. Sipan probably possessed a crater in the proper sense. That of Ararat is so much worn down that it can scarcely be said to exist.
Sipan appears to have been built up by successive lava streams, which became more and more viscous, until that finally emitted had no power to flow at all, and merely welled up, forming the circular mass on the east. The lava composing that mass is spongy and glassy, a glassy mica-andesite. The narrow ridge, upon which we camped, and which may represent the northern rim of the old crater, consists of a slabby rhyolite with impure obsidian; it is covered up with cindery slag. The western summit and surrounding rock is made up of a lava somewhat similar to that on Nimrud—a dull impure obsidian with ill-developed spherulites; the flow structure is well marked. Tuffs were nowhere to be seen. But a bastion on the northern side of the mountain was cloaked with grey pumice sand.
The ascent of the mountain is described by Brant (J.R.G.S. 1840, vol. x. pp. 409 seq.) and by Tozer (Turkish Armenia, pp. 327 seq.). But they both largely underestimate the height. They appear to have been misled by the fact that the highest points are free from snow in midsummer; but the summit region in general is a mass of snow even at that season. On Ararat such piles of rock, on which the snow has been unable to obtain a footing, are found quite near the summit, which is nearly 17,000 feet high. ↑