Et Extraits,
XIII. i. 337; Texier, Armenie, I. 59.)
NOTE 4. - Josephus alludes to the belief that Noah's Ark still existed, and
that pieces of the pitch were used as amulets. (Ant. I. 3. 6.)
Ararat (16,953 feet) was ascended, first by Prof. Parrot, September 1829;
by Spasski Aotonomoff, August 1834; by Behrens, 1835; by Abich, 1845; by
Seymour in 1848; by Khodzko, Khanikoff, and others, for trigonometrical
and other scientific purposes, in August 1850. It is characteristic of the
account from which I take these notes (Longrimoff, in Bull. Soc. Geog.
Paris, ser. IV. tom. i. p. 54), that whilst the writer's countrymen,
Spasski and Behrens, were "moved by a noble curiosity," the Englishman is
only admitted to have "gratified a tourist's whim"!
NOTE 5. - Though Mr. Khanikoff points out that springs of naphtha are
abundant in the vicinity of Tiflis, the mention of ship-loads (in
Ramusio indeed altered, but probably by the Editor, to camel-loads), and
the vast quantities spoken of, point to the naphtha-wells of the Baku
Peninsula on the Caspian. Ricold speaks of their supplying the whole
country as far as Baghdad, and Barbaro alludes to the practice of
anointing camels with the oil. The quantity collected from the springs
about Baku was in 1819 estimated at 241,000 poods (nearly 4000 tons),
the greater part of which went to Persia. (Pereg. Quat. p. 122;
Ramusio, II. 109; El. de Laprim. 276; V. du Chev.
