94 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



tuchia, which is a stone of variegated colours and 

 being melted with copper changeth it into gold ; 

 Cumaean salt which is . . . ; pure red arsenic, the 

 blood of a ruddy man, red tartar, gumma of Barbary, 

 which is red and worketh wonders in this art ; salt 

 of Sardinia which is like . . . Let all these be beaten 

 together in a brazen mortar, then sifted finely and 

 made into a paste with the above water. Dry this 

 paste, and again rub it fine on the marble slab. 

 Then take the lead you have prepared as directed 

 above, and melt it together with the powder, adding 

 some red alum and some more of the various salts. 

 This alum is found about Aleppo (' Alapia'), and in 

 Armenia, and will give your metal a good colour. 

 When you have so done you shall see the lead 

 changed into the finest gold, as good as what comes 

 from Arabia. This have I, Michael Scot, often put 

 to the proof and ever found it to be true.' 



If such a receipt is valuable as indicating the 

 chemical practice of those days, it is no less inter- 

 esting as it throws light upon the life and occupa- 

 tions of Scot. He must have set up a complete 

 chemical laboratory at Toledo, with crucibles for 

 the melting of metals, and alembics for the dis- 

 tillation of the substances which his art required 

 him to mix with them. His situation was one very 

 favourable to these pursuits, not only because Spain 

 was one of those countries where the doctrine of 

 alchemy made its greatest progress, and attracted 

 most powerfully the concourse of foreign adepts, 

 but also from the facility with which the necessary 

 materia chemica could there be procured. The 

 sierras of that country were full of mineral wealth 

 of all kinds, especially quicksilver, which was one 



