Alchemy part 2

Regarding the derivation of the word, there are two main views
which agree in holding that it has an Arabic descent, the
prefix al being the Arabic article. But according to one,
the second part of the word comes from the Greek chumeia,
pouring, infusion, used in connexion with the study of the
juices of plants, and thence extended to chemical manipulations
in general; this derivation accounts for the old-fashioned
spellings ``chymist'' and ``chymistry.'' The other view
traces it to khem or khame, hieroglyph khmi, which
denotes black earth as opposed to barren sand, and occurs in
Plutarch as chumeia; on this derivation alchemy is explained
as meaning the ``Egyptian art.'' The first occurrence of
the word is said to be in a treatise of Julius Firmicus, an
astrological writer of the 4th century, but the prefix al
there must be the addition of a later copyist. Among the
Alexandrian writers alchemy was designated as e tes chrusou
te kai argurou poieseos techne theia kai iera or
e episteme iera. In English, Piers Plowman (1362)
contains the phrase ``experimentis of alconomye,'' with
variants ``alkenemye'' and ``alknamye.'' The prefix al
begins to be dropped about the middle of the 16th century.