THE ALCHEMICAL STUDIES OF SCOT 95 



f the substances most frequently chosen to become 

 lie subject of the transmuter's art. In the Alpu- 

 arras, a mountainous district lying under the soft 

 limate of Granada, grew plenty of these rare herbs 

 mployed in alchemy, as they were also in the 

 icdicine of the Arabians. Ibn Beithar of Malaga 

 escribes them in his botanical thesaurus, and 

 ', is said that after the Moors had lost that fair 

 ingdom their herbalists, even as late as our 

 wn times, made yearly journeys from Africa to 

 ather in these hills the plants which ancient 

 cience taught them to value highly. But the 

 ays of the ' ultimo sospiro del Moro ' were yet in 

 tie far future, and meanwhile Michael Scot in his 

 aboratory at Toledo could easily command all these 

 reasures for the purposes of experiment. Nor was 

 t in vain that he fanned his fires, and watched the 

 netals melt and the menstruum distil in the process 

 f the lesser or greater mystery. If he never saw 

 r enus blush into the true substance of Sol, or 

 (ercury, the fickle and obstinate, congeal into 

 veritable Luna, his chemical practice, and the re- 

 ords in which he has embodied it, mark none the 

 ess true and significant a moment in the history 

 f scientific progress. 



