"Friable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inside the houses, some of which, the older especially, were ill constructed—mostly with boulder-stones that had neither angles nor edges, hence little grasp on each other beyond what the friction of their weight, and the adhesion of their poor old friable cement, gave them; for the Italians, with a genius for building, are careless of certain constructive essentials. After about twenty seconds of shaking, the lonely pair began to hear, through the noise of the cries of the people, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... to be graveyard bones. The collection was too complete. It is very rare to find a graveyard skeleton of which many of the small bones are not missing. And such bones are usually more or less weathered and friable. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... hand, and the matter was made clear in an instant. The stone was not our hard Onondaga gray limestone, but soft, easily marked with the finger-nail, and, on testing it with an acid, I found it, not hard carbonate of lime, but a soft, friable sulphate of lime—a form of gypsum, which must have been brought from some ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... abounding with fossil shells, represent the ancient sea-bottom, which has been upheaved. The surface of these table-heights is hard for a depth of about six feet, forming an upper stratum of rock which can be used for building; beneath this are marls and friable cretaceous stone, which during rains are washed away. The continual process of undermining by the decay of the lower strata has caused periodical disruption of the hard upper stratum, which has fallen off in huge blocks and rolled down the rough inclines that form the sides. As the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... indispensable for success. Neither glass nor porcelain is flexible, and therefore to lay a continuous line of one or the other was out of the question. Resin and pitch were even more faulty, because extremely brittle and friable. What of such fibres as hemp or silk, if saturated with tar or some other good non-conductor? For very short distances under still water they served fairly well, but any exposure to a rocky beach with its chafing action, any rub by a passing anchor, was fatal to ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... fairly well even when four years old. Owing to its small size, the seed should be planted in a seedpan or flat in a greenhouse or hotbed, where all conditions can be controlled. The soil should be made very fine and friable, the thinly scattered seeds merely pressed upon the surface with a block or a brick, and water applied preferably through the bottom of the seedpan, which may be set in a shallow dish of water until the surface of the soil begins ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... found on removing boxing that the portion adjacent to the wood was frequently friable and of poor quality, owing to the fact just stated. It is usual to face or plaster concrete work after removing the boxing. On breakwater work, where the writer was engaged, the wall was faced with cement and flint grit, and this was found to form a particularly hard and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... peasant, who was attached to the saddle of a hussar, and who turned round at every discharge of canister and tried to hide behind Napoleon: "Fool, it is shameful! You'll get yourself killed with a ball in the back." He who writes these lines has himself found, in the friable soil of this knoll, on turning over the sand, the remains of the neck of a bomb, disintegrated, by the oxidization of six and forty years, and old fragments of iron which parted like elder-twigs ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... in, and with the breaks or gullies through these walls reduced to a scale. This shows that the level plain between the encompassing walls ranges from half a mile to a mile in places. The walls of the canyon are composed of friable sandstone, and are usually vertical. Their height is not given with precision. The engraving also shows the outline forms and comparative size of the several structures, with specimens of three varieties of masonry used in the walls. No. 2 shows an alternation ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... appearances of abrupt fracture, are those of that grey or black limestone above described (Chap. x. Sec. 4), formed into a number of thin layers or leaves, commonly separated by filmy spreadings of calcareous sand, hard when dry, but easily softened by moisture; the whole, considered as a mass, easily friable, though particular beds may be very thick and hard. Imagine a layer of such substance, three or four thousand feet thick, broken with a sharp crash through the middle, and one piece of it thrown up as in Fig. 11. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... argument Dared interpose to waken spleen In him whose vision grasped the unseen, Whose counsellor was the ready blade, Whose argument the cannonade. He loathed his land's divergent parties, loth To grant them speech, they were such idle troops; The friable and the grumous, dizzards both. Men were good sticks his mastery wrought from hoops; Some serviceable, none credible on oath. The silly preference they nursed to die In beds he scorned, and led where they should lie. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... color produced by burning, but usually well polished. As additional distinguishing features of this group we notice that the shape is more generally globular, the workmanship rather superior, and the pottery somewhat harder and less friable than that of the other group; the angular and geometrical figures formed by straight lines are more common in this group; here we also find the meander or Greek fret correctly drawn, the vine, and several other designs rarely or never found in the other group. The figures of animals, which are ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... lighted his pipe (vice the over-dry friable cheroot, flung into the garden) the Major then turned his mind to serious and consecutive thought on the subject of her son, his beloved little pal, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... friable shore with trails of debris, You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot, What is yours is ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... intervals from among the trees. Valleys and plains, even in some places the slopes of the hills, are sparsely covered with those delicate aromatic herbs which affect a stony soil. Their life is a perpetual struggle against the sun: scorched, dried up, to all appearance dead, and so friable that they crumble to pieces in the fingers when one attempts to gather them, the spring rains annually infuse into them new life, and bestow upon them, almost before one's eyes, a green and perfumed youth ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... which show much adherent dirty matter, and rub them between thumb and forefinger under the water tap. The dirt usually rubs off easily, as it has become friable from ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... of a mixture of the phosphate of lime and triple phosphate of magnesia-and-ammonia, or the fusible calculus, is commonly whiter and more friable than any other species, resembling sometimes a mass of chalk, and leaving a white dust on the fingers. This species is generally not laminated. Occasionally, however, it separates readily into laminae, the interstices of which are often studded with sparkling crystals of the triple phosphate. ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... little observation, the cruciform outline of the church can be traced, and then its disjointed masses reduce themselves into connected details. The dark-red stone of which the building was constructed is friable, and peculiarly apt to crumble under the moist atmosphere and dreary winds of the northeast coast. The mouldings and tracery are thus wofully obliterated, and the facings are so much decayed as to leave the original surface distinguishable only here and there. At ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... deep, large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense. Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls. (* There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime a proportion of sand: for few chalks are so pure as to have none.) (** To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... imparts to north China the physical character of the scenery, but also determines the agricultural products, the transport, and general economic life of the people of that part of the country. It is peculiar to north China and it is not found south of the Yangtsze. The loess is a solid but friable earth of brownish-yellow colour, and when triturated with water is not unlike loam, but differs from the latter by its highly porous and tubular structure. The loess soil is extremely favourable to agriculture. (See ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... It takes a number of such domes to raise a brood of partridges. For this was an ant's nest. The old one stepped on top, looked about a moment, then gave half a dozen vigorous rakes with her daws, The friable ant-hill was broken open, and the earthen galleries scattered in ruins down the slope. The ants swarmed out and quarreled with each other for lack of a better plan. Some ran around the hill with vast energy and little purpose, ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Town, several Monasteries and 50,000 souls:" till on Christmas midnight A.D. 1277, the winds and the storm-rains having got to their height, Ocean and Ems did, "about midnight," undermine the place, folded it over like a friable bedquilt or monstrous doomed griddle-cake, and swallowed it all away. Most of it, they say, that night, the whole of it within ten years coming; [Busching,—Erdbeschreibung,—v. 845, 846; Preuss, i. 308, 309.]—and there it has hung, like an unlovely ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... men's dislike to each other's society been less, the general din of the night would have prevented much talking; as it was, they sat in a rigid reticence that was almost a third personality. The roads were laid hereabouts with a light sandy gravel, which, though not clogging, was soft and friable. It speedily became saturated, and the wheels ground heavily and deeply ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... better than the heavy soil for vegetables and berries, if moisture is kept right, because it can be more easily cultivated and takes water without losing the friable condition which is so desirable. A heavier soil can, however, be improved by the free use of stable manure or by the addition of sand, or by the use of one or more applications of lime at the rate of 500 pounds to the acre, as may be required - all these operations making ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... the most violent manner, and who should come in but Monsieur Philoxene Boyer, rushing forward like a whirlwind, a last lock of hair dancing on top of a bald pate, a livid complexion, a feverish eye, a sack-overcoat friable as tinder, a hat reddened by the rain, trousers falling in lint upon boots run down at the heel: such was the appearance presented by Monsieur Philoxene Boyer, our old classmate at college, and now a critic, a romantic, an uncomprehended man of genius, and a literary man. I had already ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Three sorts of limestone were employed: for the best tombs, the fine white limestone of Turah, or the compact siliceous limestone of Sakkarah; for ordinary tombs, the marly limestone of the Libyan hills. This last, impregnated with salt and veined with crystalline gypsum, is a friable material, and unsuited for ornamentation. The bricks are of two kinds, both being merely sun-dried. The most ancient kind, which ceased to be used about the time of the Sixth Dynasty, is small (8.7 X 4.3 X 5.5 inches), yellowish, and made of nothing but sand, mixed ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... was light and friable, and below lay a bed of silicious tufa; therefore, even without tools, the aperture deepened quickly. It soon became evident that a man, or men, clinging to the sides of the "pah," were cutting a passage into its exterior ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... soft, friable, earthy substance, prepared from marble, chalk, and other lime-stones, or from shells, by ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... team abreast, what he knew were his Shire mares, drawing the plows back and forth across, contour-plowing, turning the green sod of the hillsides to the rich dark brown of humus-filled earth so organic and friable that it would almost melt by gravity into fine-particled seed-bed. That was for the corn—and sorghum-planting for his silos. Other hill-slopes, in the due course of his rotation, were knee-high in barley; and still other slopes ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... in a vertical space the jagged stones of the underlying masonry. It is noticeable that much more attention has been paid to protective devices at Zui than at Tusayan. This is undoubtedly due to the prevalent use of adobe in the former. This friable material must be protected at all vulnerable points with slabs of stone in order quickly to divert the water and preserve the roofs and ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... the waters, and absorb upon his pale countenance the red rays of the sun already cut by the black line of the horizon. Then Charles returned to his isolated abode, always alone, slow and sad, amusing himself with making the friable and moving sand creak ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was very clearly marked. Other conditions being the same, houses built on alluvial ground suffered most of all; and the destruction was also great in those standing on soft sedimentary rocks such as clays and friable limestones. On the other hand, when compact limestones or ancient schists formed the foundation-rock, the amount of damage was conspicuously less ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... stones white, others red, others black, &c. These serve to distinguish each person's property. I could see nothing peculiar in this gravel; some silicious pebbles as large as a pigeon's egg, pieces of white and reddish quartz, iron stone, and killow, and a soft friable yellow stone, which crumbled to pieces by the fingers, were the chief minerals that I could distinguish. Besides the above there was a great portion of sand, and a yellow earth ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... it be full; and so setting fire to the bottom, they let it burn till the coal be wasted, and then renew the kilns with fresh ore and coal, in the same manner as before. This is done without fusion of the metal, and serves to consume the more drossy parts of the ore and to make it friable." The writer then describes the process of smelting the ore mixed with cinder in the furnaces, where, he says, the fuel is "always of charcoal." "Several attempts," he adds, "have been made to introduce ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... immense area, the Mississippi receives into its waters a large amount of suspended earthy matter. This, however, does not very strikingly appear on the upper river, its own banks and those of its tributaries being more of a gravelly character and less friable than lower down. The gravity of particles, therefore, worn from the bed and sides of the channel above, unless the current be exceedingly strong, is greater than the buoyant capacity of the water, and falls to the bottom, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... went back together in search of them. We found they had halted among some willows where they had picked up some pieces of skin and a few bones of deer that had been devoured by the wolves last spring. They had rendered the bones friable by burning and eaten them as well as the skin; and several of them had added their old shoes to the repast. Peltier and Vaillant were with them, having left the canoe which they said was so completely ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... several miles, and had now reached a great basin, wherein lay the fertile lands of my host. A sudden turn to the right, and a beautiful valley stretched before us. Part of it had yielded to the plough, and the brown, friable soil bespoke richness and boundless possibilities for corn. Farther on were meadows, reaching like green carpets close up to the whitewashed fences. And in the distance—behold my future home! It sat upon the crest of a gentle ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... cm. thick, and consisted of concrete 1:3:3, moulded in situ and covered by the tide within twenty-four hours of being laid. The concrete moulded in situ hardened a little at first, and then became soft when damp, and friable when dry, and white efflorescence appeared on the surface. In a short time the waves broke this concrete away, and exposed the reinforcement, which rusted and disappeared, with the result that in less ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... conditions. Of such soils, the first to be considered are those of basaltic origin. They are usually of a chocolate or rich red colour, are of great depth, in parts more or less covered with basaltic boulders, in others entirely free from stones. The surface soil is friable and easily worked, and the subsoil, which is usually of a rich red colour, is easily penetrated by the roots of trees and plants grown thereon. Occasionally the subsoil is more compact, in which case it is not so good for fruit-tree growth, but is better adapted for that of sugar-cane, corn, grass, ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... the small drills that run into the sea are great rivers; and the gullies, which are dry for 3 or 4 months before, now discharge an impetuous torrent. The low land by the seaside is for the most part friable, loose, sandy soil; yet indifferently fertile and clothed with woods. The mountains are chequered with woods and some spots of savannahs: some of the hills are wholly covered with tall, flourishing trees; others but thinly; and these few trees that are ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... antimony, the hydrogen evolved at the negative pole combines with the reduced substances, forming hydrogen, selenide, or telluride, which remain in part in solution in the liquid. The reduced metal separates out at the anode in a friable condition.—Zeitschrift fur ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... it into a Crucible, we kept it melted in a gentle heat, till by the Evaporation of some parts, and the shuffling of the rest, it had quite lost its former Colour, what remain'd we took out, and found it to be a friable Calx, of a dirty Gray. On this we pour'd fair Water, which it did not Colour Green or Blew, but only seem'd to make a muddy mixture with it, then stopping the Vial wherein the Ingredients were put, we let it stand ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... and the air so pure and bracing that it did the lungs good to breathe. So I made my way out of counting-house and street for a walk. I ascended the dry, crumbling hills which with long, deep gullies and breaks in them, and friable soil, looked as if they were ready to tumble into pieces at the first shake of one of those earthquakes so frequent in the country. On the road, chained gangs of surly convicts were at work, and some smart-looking soldiers, in blue and white, came marching along! Caravans ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... the case with the pen-drawn letter, especially as the section is likely to be less deeply and sharply cut nowadays than in the ancient examples, for the workmanship of to-day seems to be less perfect and the materials used more friable. A slight direct sinkage before beginning to cut the V-sunk section is a useful method of [11] partially atoning for modern shallow cutting, as shadows more directly defining the outlines are thus obtained. ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... too sudden, as is well enough shown by our hot sands and gravels; but I apprehend no one will ever fear rendering strong clays too porous and manageable. The object of draining is to impart to such soils the mellowness and dark color of self drained, rich and friable soil. That perfect drainage and cultivation will do this, is a well known fact. I know it in the case of my own garden. How it does so I am not chemist enough to explain in detail; but it is evident the effect is produced by the fibers of the growing crop intersecting every ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... always needs great care and attention in its cultivation, but much less care is necessary in this country than in Europe. The soil most suitable is a rich friable loam, such as occurs in the black soil of the Duccan, the alluvial tracts in the basin of the Ganges or Nerbudda. Thorough working of the soil is necessary, and in stations where the market price of cauliflower is usually over four annas per head, as is the case in many parts of Southern ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... architectural soil, it seeks approximately the right angle—the level plain or the vertical wall. It erodes easily under running water, but it does not slide; sand and clay are in such proportions as to make a brittle but not a friable soil. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... Bashan are noteworthy. Volcanic in origin—the Jebel ed-Druz is a group of extinct volcanoes—the friable volcanic soil is extraordinarily fertile. It is said to yield wheat eighty-fold and barley a hundred. The oaks for which the country was once famous still distinguish it ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the soft and friable stuff to be found at Bridlington, but of hard and slippery sandstone, with bulky ribs oversaling here and there, and threatening to cast the climber back. At such spots nicks for the feet had been cut, or broken with a hammer, but scarcely wider ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... with no selvedge edge. It has been dyed red, probably ferum, a dye which I find uniformly associated with friable or decomposing fibres. ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... the altitude of nearly twelve thousand feet, from which the snow of course never disappears. But during the summer months, when scarcely a shower falls upon the valley, its drifts become dun-colored with dust from the friable soil below, and present an aspect similar to that of the Pyrenees at the same season. During most of the year, the rest of the mountains which encircle the Valley are also capped with snow. The residences of Young and Kimball are situated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the black cotton soil by the English, for what reason I know not. [W. H. S.] The reason is that cotton is very largely grown in the Nerbudda Valley, both on the black soil and other soils. In Bundelkhand the black, friable soil, often with a high proportion of organic matter, is called 'mar', and is chiefly devoted to raising crops of wheat, gram, or chick-pea (Cicer arietinum), linseed, and joar (Holcus sorghum). Cotton is also sown in it, but ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... consequence lose their lignine and cellulose, though their walls suffer no corrosion. The different forms of decay in wood are accompanied by fungi, which either completely destroy the tissue, or alter its nature so much by the abstraction of the cellulose and lignine, that it becomes loose and friable. Thus fungi induce the rapid destruction of decaying wood. These are the conclusions determined by Schacht, in his memoir on ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... slowly-acting form, lime, nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid, and from a physical point of view it furnishes a padding to maintain the texture of the soil, or, in other words, to keep it in a loose and friable condition. And with reference to this last very important point, I may remind the reader that Sir John Lawes has well pointed out that "All our experiments tend to show that it is the physical condition of the soil, its capacity for absorbing and retaining moisture, its permeability ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... of the best-constructed and handsomest chapels in the South Seas. Like the buildings of the palace, it stands upon an artificial pier, presenting a semicircular sweep to the bay. The chapel is built of hewn blocks of coral; a substance which, although extremely friable, is said to harden by exposure to the atmosphere. To a stranger, these blocks look extremely curious. Their surface is covered with strange fossil-like impressions, the seal of which must have been set before the flood. Very nearly white when hewn from the reefs, the coral ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... vital activity of bacteria and fungi, and is physiologically a consequence of respiratory processes like those in malting. It seems fairly established that when the preliminary heating process of fermentation is drawing to a close, the cotton, hay, &c., having been converted into a highly porous friable and combustible mass, may then ignite in certain circumstances by the occlusion of oxygen, just as ignition is induced by finely divided metals. A remarkable point in this connexion has always been the necessary conclusion that the living bacteria concerned must be exposed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... trout stream in Scotland. Beyond it the road winds through a thick brushwood, choked with long grasses, and with but few trees, chiefly of Acacia, Dalbergia Sissoo, and a scarlet fruited Sterculia. The soil is a red, friable clay and gravel. At this season only a few spring plants were in flower, amongst which a very sweet-scented Crinum, Asphodel, and a small Curcuma, were in the greatest profusion. Leaves of terrestrial Orchids appeared, with ferns and weeds of hot damp regions. I crossed ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... his grey cloak, His head upon a pile of caked thin leaves Whose life had dried up full two years ago. Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew As friable as that pale ashen fritter; It had more body than reason dare expect From that so beautiful creature's best intent. He waking found me no more there; and wanders Through tna's woods to-day Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, Till he shall strike a road shall lead him ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... upon a gentle declivity, a slope of laterite and diluvium washed down from the higher levels. The ground is good for drainage, but the soft and friable soil readily absorbs the deluging torrents of rain, and as readily returns them to the air in the shape of noxious vapours. The shape is triangular. The apex is 'Tower Hill,' so named from a ruined martello, supposed to have been built by the Dutch, and till lately used ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... mind can see that all the rock there is coral, none of which is in position. The surface, the caves, the chinks, and the numerous pot-holes are compact limestone, often quite crystalline, while beneath it is oolitic, either friable or hard enough to be used for buildings. The hills are sand-blown, not upheaved. On a majority of the maps of the sixteenth century there were islands on Mouchoir, and on Silver Banks, where now are rocks "awash;" and the Dutch and the Severn Shoals, ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... then the snow becomes a warm garment till the April sun softens the air above; the latent heat of the earth begins to be developed; the snow melts, and penetrates the ground through every pore, rendering friable the stiffest soil. For a month or more before the visible termination of the Canadian winter, vegetation is in active progress on the surface of the earth, even under snow ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... the tip the oozing is efficiently arrested by sutures, but in deeper wounds a ligature must be applied to the bleeding vessel. Secondary haemorrhage is much more difficult to arrest on account of the friable state of the tissues, and it may be necessary to ligate the lingual or even the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... "Good friable soil you got here," said Mr Latter, recovering a measure of self-possession. "Pretty profitable ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a network of roots and getting its nourishment, goodness knows how, for these are by no means tender, digestible sandstones, but uncommon hard gneiss and quartz which has no idea of breaking up into friable small stuff, and which only takes on a high polish when it is vigorously sanded and canvassed by the Ogowe. While I was engaged in climbing across these promontories, the crew would be busy shouting and hauling the canoe round the point ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... without dispute, should be to us an example of the utmost possible stability of precipitousness attained with materials of imperfect and variable character; and, what is more, there are very few cliffs which do not display alternations between compact and friable conditions of their material, marked in their contours by bevelled slopes when the bricks are soft, and vertical steps when they are harder. And, although we are not hence to conclude that it is well to introduce courses of bad materials when we can get ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... I returned from the West to the city of New York in 1819, Mr. John Griscomb was a popular lecturer on chemistry in the old almshouse. He apprised me that the peculiar friable white clay, which I had labeled chalk from its external characters, contained no carbonic acid. It was a chemical fact that impressed me. I was reminded of this fact, and of his friendly countenance, ever after, on receiving a letter of introduction from him by a Mr. William R. Smith, with ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the vessels are tripods, but a few have rounded or flat bottoms and a few are supplied with annular stands. The walls are thick and the shapes are uncouth or clumsy. The paste is coarse, poorly baked, and friable; near the surface it is a warm reddish or yellowish gray; within the mass it is ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... foot like a Persian rug. Any one who has walked over the plain at West Point can understand the value of these regular autumnal top-dressings. If the stable-manure can be composted and left till thoroughly decayed, fine and friable, all the better. If stable-manure can not be obtained, Mr. Parsons recommends ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... then, the water being let off, the muck can exert no detrimental action; but operates as effectually to loosen a too heavy soil, as in case of sand, it makes an over-porous soil compact or retentive. A clay may be made friable, if well drained, by incorporating with it any substance as lime, sand, long manure or muck, which interposing between the clayey particles, ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... of tools, as it happened, presented no serious impediment to the execution of their design. The grave was a shallow one, the freshly turned mould loose and friable. Digging with their hands, they soon uncovered the coffin, which they then contrived to raise and hoist over the cemetery gates into the roadway, where they sat upon it to conceal it from chance passers-by till four o'clock in the morning. It was then daylight. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... make cultivation successful when it was previously almost impossible. The removal of moisture by drainage affects the physical characters of the soil in another manner; it makes it lighter, more friable, and more easily worked; and this change is occasioned by the downward flow of the water carrying with it to the lower part of the soil the finer argillaceous particles, leaving the coarser and sandy matters above, and in this way a marked improvement is produced on heavy and ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... colliery near Newcastle, no less than thirty sigillaria trees were standing in their natural position in an area of fifty yards square, the interior in each case being sandstone, which was surrounded by a bark of friable coal. ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... doubtless carry some fertilizing material also, although sewage, as such, never finds its way into the canals. The washing would be very likely to have a decided flocculating effect and so render this material more friable when applied ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... must not come too close to the surface. Some of the best vineyard lands in the country are very stony, the stones hindering only in making the land difficult to till. Nearly all grapes require a friable soil, compactness being a serious defect. Virgil, writing in Christ's time, gave good advice as ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... wash down the more soluble portions of earth, and continually waste away the soil. Landslips occur daily during the rainy season; streams of rich mud pour down the valley's slopes, and as the river flows beneath in a swollen torrent, the friable banks topple down into the stream and dissolve. The Atbara becomes the thickness of peasoup, as its muddy waters steadily perform the duty they have fulfilled from age to age. Thus was the great river at work upon our arrival on its bank at the bottom of the valley. The Arab name, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... exterior of the aisle walls was recased with the same friable sandstone. In 1860 the reredos was erected, the subjects of the panels being the sacrifices of Abel, Noah, Melchisedec, and Abraham, and the Last Supper. To the latest restoration, which included entire recasing of tower and spire, clearstories and chancel, the new sacristy at the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... indeterminate race, included an upper left maxillary, still retaining three teeth, an incomplete mastoid apophysis, and seven pieces of crania, belonging to different individuals. The piece of pottery only measured one and a half by two and a quarter inches; the clay is gray and friable, bound together with big bits of quartz, mica, and a few particles of charcoal." There would appear to be no sufficient reason to question the exactness of a ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac |
