Such as it now stands, the Cathedral of Toledo had not yet begun to rise above ground when Michael Scot had his residence there, but enough of the ancient city remains to show what Toledo must have been like in these early days. The splendid and commanding site, swept about by the waves of the Tagus; the famous bridge of Alcantara; the steep slope of approach crowned by ancient fortifications; and above all the massed and massive houses of the old town, so closely crowded together as hardly to give room for streets that should rather be called lanes; all this, beneath the unchanging sky of the south, recalls sufficiently what must have been the surroundings of Scot’s life during ten laborious years. Even yet, where white-wash peels and stucco fails, strange records of that forgotten past reveal themselves in the walls and on the house fronts: sculptured stones of every age; bas-reliefs, arabesques; windows in the delicate Moorish manner of twin arches, and a central shaft with carved cornices, long built up and forgotten till accident has revealed them. Here then, perhaps in some house still standing, the scholar come from Sicily made his home. The quiet courtyard is forgotten; the _azulejos_ have disappeared from walls and pavement; the rich wood-work of the ceilings, still bearing dim traces of colour and gold, looks down on the life of another age; even the curious cedar book-chest has crumbled to dust, for all its delicate defence of ironwork spreading away like a spider’s web from hinges and from lock. But the name and the fame endure, and the years which Michael Scot spent in Toledo have left a deep mark upon that and every succeeding age. CHAPTER IV THE ALCHEMICAL STUDIES OF SCOT The Moorish schools of Spain were famous, not only for their researches in natural history, but also for the interest they took in chemistry, then called alchemy: a name which sufficiently indicates the nation which chiefly pursued these studies, and the language that recorded their progress. The practical turn taken by alchemy, as the foundation of a scientific _materia medica_ in minerals, is shown by the writings of Rases. This author, who belonged to the ninth and tenth centuries (860-940), produced a considerable work on medicine in which he devoted special attention to the diseases of children. Under his name appeared several alchemical writings, either his own or the productions of the school which followed his teaching and borrowed his name.