=Spain.=--Spain offers a very favourable opportunity for the study of Muhammedan architecture. The =Mosque of Cordova=, begun by the Caliph Abd-el-Rahman in 786, was enlarged by successive additions, until it presents the appearance of a forest of columns and arches, apparently of unlimited extent. There are said to be 860. The arcades are in two tiers, the upper arches being supported on posts which are placed on the capitals of the lower ones and at the same time form abutments to the lower arches. In most cases the arches are of horseshoe form; but elsewhere, as in the vestibule to the mihrab chamber the upper horseshoe arches surmount a tier of cinquefoil or five-scalloped ones, and the posts on which they abut are faced with attached columns. A remarkable additional feature is the interlacing between the upper and lower arches of portions of multifoil arches; so arranged that they appear to bridge over the space between the alternate lower column and at the same time to spring over the capitals of the intermediate upper column. The arrangement is a striking instance of the Arab invention in the use of repetition of motive, a use, in this case, governed by constructive reasonableness as well as imposed by the desire for subtlety of elaboration. The =Mosque of Cordova= is second in size to the =Great Mosque of Mecca=. Though the superb adornments of mosaics and red and gold ceilings have suffered from decay and restoration and its vista of arcades is blocked in parts by the coro (choir), erected when the edifice was converted into a cathedral, it is still a marvellous memorial of Cordova’s supremacy as the most learned, cultured, and prosperous caliphate in Islam. In Toledo there is nothing approaching the magnificence of the Mosque of Cordova. Among the remains are the churches of =S. Cristo de la Luz= and =Santa Maria la Bianca=, which are mosques converted to the Catholic ritual. At Seville beside the much renowned =Alcazar= or Castle, is the celebrated tower, =Giralda=, so named from the weather vane (giradillo), a figure of Faith with a banner, some 305 feet from the ground. It surmounts the Renaissance top of three stories, added in 1568 to the old tower, which, as an altarpiece in the cathedral shows, originally terminated in battlements. These suggest that the building was erected as a watch tower or, may be, as a symbol of power. Its plan is a square of 45 feet, the walls being about 8 feet thick, built of material from Roman and probably Visigothic remains. Its surface is pierced by twenty windows, many of which are subdivided by columnettes, and embellished with sunken panels, enriched with arabesques. The =Giralda= is under the special protection of SS. Justa and Rufina--a fact commemorated in the above-mentioned picture and in another by Murillo, now in the Provincial Museum. It was used as a model for the design of the tower of the Madison Square Garden, New York.