Citations:petræan

Adjective: alternative form of petrean

 * 1848, John Forbes, A Physician’s Holiday, John Churchill and John Murray; second edition, Chapter XX., page #200:
 * Leaving this green but dismal glen, we entered on a fresh ascent speedily ending in a true petræan desert which continued all the remainder of our way to the cliffs of the Gemmi.
 * 1852, Richard Digby Neave, Four days in Connemara; Chapter II., page #18:
 * Loughcorrib occupied the middle distance, bordered by a petræan tract, on which the stones seem to have been hailed down.
 * 1860, David Urquhart, The Lebanon, Thomas Cautley Newby; Volume II., Chapter XV., page #300:
 * The road was through this petræan flood ; the blocks lay around with solid rectangular form and sharp angles, as if they had been brought and cast there ready squared for some Cyclopic yet human structure, only that several larger than the rest destroyed the illusion : the chief of these was a mass 20 feet by 15 and 10 ; yet had it been three times as long, it would have still been 10 feet shorter than a single stone as hewn by the primeval mason of Gebel Souria.