WORD "cHEMIa" or "CHEMISTRY." 103 



that covers the whole of Egypt^I thought myself justified. 

 Besides, from the drawings of Egypt, which are very 

 numerous, we obtain no idea of blackness. However, I 

 find that Brugsch's wonderfully interesting book ' Egypt 

 under the Pharoahs'"^ puts the expression in a form which 

 is very clear, as well as convincing up to a certain point. 

 He says that " on countless occasions the King is mentioned 

 in the inscriptions as the ' lord of the black country and of 

 the red,^ " thus distinguishing the fertile land from the 

 desert. He also adds ^^that the Egyptians designated 

 themselves simply as the people of the black land, and that 

 the inscriptions, so far as we know, have handed down to 

 us no other appellation as the distinctive name of the 

 Egyptian people " (vol. i. p. lo). We must conclude then, 

 I would say, that ham does not always mean " black," but 

 sometimes simply '' dark " in comparison with the sand. 



Information like this, confirming (although with some 

 modification) opinions drawn from the earliest times, leads 

 us into difiiculties in arriving at the real meaning of 

 " chemistry." It is certainly true that the name of an art 

 might be derived from a country ; we have an instance in 

 the word '^ japan," used for a varnish or lacquer of a 

 superior kind ; and that the name of objects made in a 

 country may take the name of the country itself, we have 

 a proof in the word '' china," used for porcelain. So people 

 finding an art coming from Egypt, and having no native 

 name at hand for it, might have given it the name of the 

 country ; but so many things came to the north of the 

 Mediterranean from that country on the Nile that it was 

 most certainly not the habit of Greeks and Romans to adopt 

 such a mode of speech, as it would have produced great 

 confusion. Of course we might add that one name at least 



* A History of Egypt under the Pbaroalis, derived entirely from the 

 Monuments. By Brugsch-Bey. (Murray: 1879.) 



