a celebrated mountain of Chalcidice in Macedonia, situated in Long. 24° 20' E. and Lat. 40° 10' N. The ancients entertained extravagant notions concerning its height. On many accounts it was famous amongst them, but it is no less so among the moderns. The Greeks, struck with its singular situation, and the venerable appearance of its towering ascent, rising as it does in the form of an isolated pyramid, erected so many churches, monasteries, hermitages, &c., upon it, that it became in a manner inhabited by devotees, and from thence received the name of the Holy Mountain, which it still retains, though many of those consecrated abodes are now decayed. This mountain stands at the extremity of a peninsula of about 40 miles in length, and an average breadth of four miles. It is 6349 feet in height, about 30 miles in circumference, and may be seen 90 miles off. It abounds with many different kinds of plants and trees, particularly the pine and fir. The appearance of the mountain at present is exceedingly interesting. Upon its sides there is scattered a profusion of convents, chapels, villages, cells, and grotts, inhabited by a number of monks of various countries, who never marry, and subsist on the most penitential fare. They are very industrious, cultivating the vine and the olive in the field, and practising various mechanical arts in their secluded abodes. The libraries of some of the convents appear to contain valuable remains of ancient literature; for, some years ago, a copy of the Greek fabulist Babrius was discovered there by a Greek, and editions of this collection of metrical fables have since been published in France, England, and Germany. Through this mountain, or rather through the isthmus behind it, Xerxes, king of Persia, is said to have cut a passage for his fleet when about to invade Greece. In this work he spent three whole years, employing all the forces on board his fleet. The truth of this relation was long denied, but has at length been proved. The remains, partly filled with water, were distinctly seen by Dr Sibthorp.—See Walpole's Memoirs relating to Turkey, 1817; Mount Athos and its Monasteries, 1837; and Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant, 1848, 2d ed.