What is "friable"

Usage examples of "friable".

They use the last of the explosive charges to loosen the permafrost that lies beneath the friable few centimeters of duricrust, then chip out a rectangular hole and lay Dr.

The coarse-grained friable sandstone, in which the lodges have been excavated, consists chiefly of subangular and rounded grains of quartz and feldspar with a small proportion of black particles.

The heaps and piles which denote buildings are divided by mounds and tumuli of loose friable soil, white with salt,--miniatures of Babylon, Nineveh, and Troy.

As before, there were many foot- and handholds, but it was all friable rottenrock, chunks of which came off in his hands, and grains of stone worked their way into his skinless palms.

Pediatric tissues were friable and needed to be handled very carefully, but the youth of the patient made precise hemostasis easy.

When it is broken up, therefore, particles of soil are so separated that they tend to fall apart, hence the soil is always made more or less friable, even when it consists of the stiffest clays.

Helen kept Mary beside her while I roamed the plain gathering the brittle, prickly limbs of gall acacias and the whorly, friable Frisbees of dried elephant dung.

Foot- and handholds were many and easy, but the rock was rotten and friable, and each stance had to be tested carefully, each hold tugged to make sure it would not come away in his hand.

It is interesting to trace the changes produced by the heat of the overlying lava, on the friable mass, which in parts has been converted into a crystalline limestone, and in other parts into a compact spotted stone Where the lime has been caught up by the scoriaceous fragments of the lower surface of the stream, it is converted into groups of beautifully radiated fibres resembling arragonite.

Caphis built a fire of dried moss in the upturned turtle shell and boiled up tea in the resmi mug, using friable strips of the bark of a twiggy bush that grew, he said, high up in the tangled tops of the banyans.

But after it had been lying in the sun on the weathering ground for six months it began to break down and crumble until it was chalky and friable and could be reloaded in the cocopans and taken to the mill and the washing gear.

Behind her the metal plain suddenly collapsed, turning sandy and friable, then melting into a smooth bath of liquid that smelled sickly-sweet beneath her.

This is done without fusion of the metal, and serves to consume the more drossy parts of the ore and to make it friable.

Once or twice, Orujo almost lost his balance as the friable rock underfoot gave way.

As soon as the tip, protected by the rootcap, reaches the ground, it penetrates the surface, if this be soft or friable.