释义 |
whitbed|ˈhwɪtbɛd| Also 9 white bed. [f. white a. + bed n.] One of the upper beds of Portland Stone, lying next below the roach; stone from this, valued as a clean freestone for building.
1829T. Webster in Trans. Geol. Soc. II. 38, I obtained from the quarrymen the thickness of the several beds, and the names by which they distinguished them from each other: but..these local appellations are not used by London architects and builders, the whole together passing here under the name of Purbeck stone only. The following is a list of the strata of limestone... 13. White bed, excellent. 1860R. Damon Handbk. Geol. Weymouth 78 Whit Bed or Upper Tier.—This bed, the best stone that the island produces in point of quality, is of a whitish brown colour when first raised, but becomes paler on parting with its quarry water. 1911Encycl. Brit. XXII. 122/1 The Portland limestones have been much in demand for building purposes; at Portland the ‘Top Roach’, the ‘Whit Bed’ or top freestone, and the ‘Best Bed’ (or Base Bed) are the best known. 1925J. Bone London Perambulator ii. 32 You can see shell imprints on the freshly cut whitbed stone on the top of the new Bush Building. 1934Archit. Rev. LXXV. 27 (caption) A ‘close up’ of the polished Portland stone wall sheathing—a new compact crystalline limestone, with a lovely fossil formation, discovered under the tiers of whitbed at the Portland quarries. 1936[see curf]. 1980Univ. Coll. London Bull. Mar. 2/2 The thickest and most sought after unit in the local sequence is the Whitbed, noted for its homogeneity stemming from its lack of fossils or flint masses which may blemish other horizons above or below in the succession. |