Ararat
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Ararat. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
ar'a-rat, a region in Armenia. In the Armenian tongue the name Ararat signifies "the plains of the Aryans," and is given to a fertile plateau in the mountainous region of Armenia. The writer of Genesis viii: 4, states that the ark "rested upon the mountains of Ararat," yet the custom has become fixed of restricting the name Ararat to a single volcanic mountain that rises to an altitude of 17,212 feet, or 14,000 feet above the plateau on which it stands. The mountain is the highest in western Asia. It is clothed with birches at its base, and rises through zones of decreasing vegetation to perpetual snow. Tournefort and other French botanists visited this region, as Ararat is not only higher but further south than Mt. Blanc. They found that as one ascends a mountain, he passes in a few hours' time through the same belts of vegetation that he finds in traveling for months toward the north pole . As they went up Ararat, they found the vegetation shorter and more scrubby until, as they neared the snow line, vegetation consisted of plants similar to those growing in frigid zones. About 1840 an eruption of sulphuric vapors burst from the mountain, and an earthquake shook vast masses of rock down its sides. A convent, a chapel, and a village of 1,000 inhabitants with pleasant gardens, were overwhelmed beneath a mighty mass of rock, debris, and ice. Mount Ararat is a corner post between Turkey in Asia, Persia, and Russia. It is called by many names, as "Giant of Armenia," "Noah's Mountain," "Dome of Eternal Ice," etc., and is said to be one of the most beautiful and impressive mountains in the world. See Alps ; Tournefort
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MOUNT, a famous mountain of Asia, in Armenia, on the confines of the Russian, Turkish, and Persian empires. Its base is washed by the Araxes, from whose low plain it rises to an immense height, terminating in two conical peaks, one much higher than the other. The chief summit, Great-Ararat, was climbed in 1830 by Prof. Parrot, who determined its altitude to be 17,230 feet above sea level. The whole of the upper region of the mountain, from the height of 12,750 feet, is covered with perpetual snow and ice. Ararat is said to be the Ararat of Scripture on whose summit the ark rested.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 entry places Ararat at a "corner post between Turkey in Asia, Persia, and Russia," and Collier's in 1921 still speaks of three empires; all three states named have since been remade, and the mountain now lies wholly within Turkey, with the border settled by the 1921 Treaty of Kars and a 1932 adjustment with Iran. The old figure of 17,212 or 17,230 feet, from Friedrich Parrot's pioneering ascent, has been revised downward by modern survey to about 5,137 metres, roughly 16,854 feet. Ararat is visible from Yerevan and appears on Armenia's coat of arms, but Armenians cannot reach it: the Turkish-Armenian border has been closed since 1993. The scriptural claim that "the ark rested" here still draws expeditions, which have returned with wood fragments and photographs of ice formations but never a vessel.
Written for this edition, 2026.