"The word chemistry, in Greek should be wrote χημια, and in Latin and English chemia and chemistry; not as usual, chymia and chymistry. The first author in whom the word is found is Plutarch, who lived under the Emperors ', ', and '. That philosopher, in his treatise of ' and ', takes occasion to observe that Egypt, in the sacred dialect of the country, was called by the same name as the black of the eye viz., χημια—by which he seems to intimate that the word chemia in the Egyptian language signified black, and that the country, Egypt, might take its denomination from the blackness of the soil. ...Instead of black, some will have it originally denote secret, or occult; and hence derive it from the Hebrew chaman, or '—a mystery, whose radix is cham. And, accordingly, Plutarch observes that Egypt, in the same sacred dialect, is sometimes wrote in Greek χαμια—chamia; whence the word is easily deduced further from Cham, eldest son of Noah, by whom Egypt was first peopled after the deluge, and from whom, in the Scripture style, it is called the land of Cham, or Chem. Now, that chaman, or haman, properly signifies secret appears from the same Plutarch, who, mentioning an ancient author named Menethes Sibonita, who had asserted that Amman and Hammon were used to denote the god of Egypt, Plutarch takes this occasion to observe that in the Egyptian language anything secret or occult was called by the same name, αμμον—Hammon... Lastly, the learned Bochart, keeping to the same sense of the word, chooses to derive it from the Arabic chema, or kema—to hide; adding that there is an Arabic book of secrets called by the same name Kemi."