Some traces of the Early Pointed style are found in St Machar Cathedral (the greater part of which, however, is much later). The old church of Auchindoir close to Craig Castle has a good doorway and other features of this period. [Illustration: From _The Book of Deer_] From the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century (1350-1450) is in Scotland the _Middle Pointed Period_. The windows were made larger, the vaulting and buttresses less heavy. The Cathedral of St Machar belongs in part to this time. The legend goes that St Machar in obedience to the commands of Columba, of whom he was a disciple, journeyed to Scotland and at Old Aberdeen founded a church. This church in the twelfth century became the seat of a bishopric founded by David I. The original church was superseded probably about 1165, the only relic of this Norman period being part of the abacus of a square pier. All other traces of earlier work have vanished. In the fourteenth century Bishop Alexander Kyninmonth II rebuilt the nave, partly of red sandstone with foliated capitals of great beauty and decorated with naturalistic imitation of leafage, one capital representing curly kail (colewort). The same kind of decoration is seen in Melrose Abbey. Later on the two impressive western towers, which are to-day conspicuous objects in the eastern landscape to all travellers northward-bound from Aberdeen, were added. They form a granite mass of solid and substantial masonry, and, being finished with machicolation, parapet-paths and capehouses, were really like a castle in Early English architecture. Still later on, in the sixteenth century, Bishop Elphinstone, who founded the University of Aberdeen, who built the first Bridge of Dee, and gave a new choir to St Nicholas Church, completed the central tower and placed in it fourteen bells “tuneable and costly.” The sandstone spires over the western towers were added by Bishop Dunbar early in the sixteenth century, in place of the original capehouses. The central tower fell in 1688, crushing the transepts. [Illustration: St Machar Cathedral, Old Aberdeen] [Illustration: St Machar Cathedral (interior)]