Brittle Sentence Examples

The book's ancient pages were so brittle, he feared they would crumble before he finished.

By the tension between the two, their alliance was brittle at best.

Moreover, this same carburizing action of the fuel would at times go so far as to turn part of the metal into a true cast iron, so brittle that it could not be worked at all.

It is extremely magnetic and almost non-magnetic; as brittle as glass and almost as pliable and ductile as copper; extremely springy, and springless and dead; wonderfully strong, and 1 The word " iron " was in 0.

These are cementite, a definite iron carbide, Fe 3 C, harder than glass and nearly as brittle, but probably very strong under gradually and axially applied stress; and ferrite, pure or nearly pure metallic a-iron, soft, weak, with high electric conductivity, and in general like copper except in colour.

The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun.

Initially fearing her to be brittle by her reaction to the world around her, A'Ran was more assured of her ability to withstand the changes in her life.

This substance, however, on standing becomes brittle.

The leaf ultimately becomes dried up and brittle.

He resisted the urge to burn them, in case the brittle papers held more secrets he needed.

The long, pointed tail is brittle.

One of the most striking alterations of cell-walls is that termed carbonization, in which the substance gradually turns black, hard and brittle, as if charred - e.g.

It is very brittle.

This can alter the make up of the stone and make it brittle.

The alloy with 12% of silicon is white, hard and brittle.

The presence of the carbide makes the metal very brittle.

Frequent wetting and drying of hands can leave nails brittle.

If you have psoriasis, you may have brittle nails, too.

Being very brittle, the spar is rather difficult to work on the lathe, and is often toughened by means of resin.

The greatest care is taken that no steel is left in a brittle condition by heating and cooling without proper annealing.

Asphalt, whether a natural product or artificially obtained, as, for example, in some chemical manufactures, is a most useful material if properly employed in connexion with reservoir dams. Under sudden impact it is brittle, and has a conchoidal fracture like glass; but under continued pressure it has the properties of a viscous fluid.

Nephelium Longana, the longan tree, also a native of southern China, is cultivated in that country, in the Malay Peninsula, India and Ceylon for its fruit, which is smaller than that of the litchi, being half an inch to an inch in diameter with a nearly smooth yellowishbrown brittle skin, and containing a pulpy aril resembling that of the litchi in flavour.

It is the most tenacious of all the ductile metals at ordinary temperatures with the exception of cobalt and nickel; it becomes brittle, however, at the temperature of liquid air.

The clips holding it in place are brittle and easily breakable.

It is of a pale brown colour, transparent, brittle, and in consequence of its agreeable odour is used for fumigation and in perfumery.

Such speculum metal is exceedingly hard and brittle, takes a fine white polish, and when protected from damp has little liability to tarnish.

Then, like aging teeth, they get more brittle.

So if your hair is thin and brittle, you can use shampoos and whatnot.

It softens at a red heat, and may be readily welded at a white heat; above this point it becomes brittle.

The wire itself is very stiff and rather brittle.

The assurances on jobs look very brittle at the moment.

It is a brittle metal of specific gravity 22 .

Or are their bones more brittle?

Thinning, dry, brittle hair can be an early sign of inadequate intake of certain vitamins and minerals.

Brittle forests and rangelands around the state have produced wildfire conditions usually not seen until June or July.

To make this glass sculpture, the artist had to anneal each component to make it less brittle.

Most of the antique frames are brittle or delicate so be careful.

The company claims that one can expect these results no matter how sparse, brittle, short or thin your current lashes are.

They vary in texture from soft like nut butter to crisp as brittle.

The outside consists of a thick, fibrous husk that surrounds a nut with a brittle hairy shell.

They may cough; have yellowed skin, eyes, or fingers; wrinkle prematurely; have a dulled sense of smell and taste; or have brittle hair.

Smoking leads to premature winkles, yellow fingernails, bad breath, and brittle hair.

Raw chicken bones are softer than their brittle cooked counterparts.

Yes, bones can pose a danger for your pet, especially when they are cooked and brittle, so use your own judgment about feeding them to your pet.

Cooked chicken bones become brittle and more likely to splinter.

Its branches are brittle and apt to get broken by high winds, especially if it has been grafted high; therefore choose a spot sheltered from high winds.

They must be carefully handled, as they are very brittle.

Brittle Hairbell (Campanula Fragilis) - The young branches are coated with soft down; the flowering branches prostrate, 12 or 15 inches long; the flowers 1 inch or more in diameter, delicate blue.

If the under layer is brown or brittle, it's a safe bet that the branch is dead and can be removed.

The spots may turn dry and brittle and crumble away, leaving holes in the maple leaves.

Shingles grow brittle over time, and with the intense Florida heat shingles tend to need to be replaced more often than in a milder climate.

Extreme climates may cause vinyl siding to become brittle, as it can shrink and expand significantly due to heat or cold.

The old vinyl used to be prone to becoming brittle with the constant bombarding of the suns rays.

For instance, calcium encourages strong bones which are useful for young people and also women in later years who may start to suffer from weak or brittle bones.

This makes your bones brittle, which means you are at higher risk for fractures and broken bones.

As you age, you may find that your hair becomes thinner and perhaps more brittle.

Color can further damage hair that is dry and brittle.

It's not uncommon to notice more hair in your brush or in the shower, and your hair may become more brittle and dry.Along with hair loss, another common symptom is the growth of facial hair.

The cushions on the side of the mask can become brittle and irritate your face.

Do not use a condom if it is torn, brittle, stiff, or sticky.

Dentinogenesis imperfecta may occur, causing brittle teeth.

Poor mineral absorption may result in osteoporosis, or brittle bones, which may lead to bone fractures.

Symptoms of calcium deficiency include joint pain, brittle nails, eczema, high cholesterol, insomnia, high blood pressure, nervousness, and tooth decay.

Other symptoms of severe secondary PEM include baggy, wrinkled skin; constipation; dry, thin, or brittle hair; lethargy; pressure sores, and other skin lesions.

The mass of bone increases, but the new bone material that is added is porous, weak, and brittle.

Let's face it; as you get older your hair will get thinner, your skin will wrinkle and your bones will get more brittle.

Vitamin deficiencies can also cause brittle, unhealthy-looking hair or even hair loss.

Extensions are popular hair choices for many African American women, mainly because growing out black hair can be very difficult due to its naturally dry and brittle nature.

This is generally not recommended for women with extra brittle hair.

Very brittle hair may require frequent conditioning to keep from developing the fuzzy look of layered split ends.

In between professional treatments, it is important to use moisturizing products, including ethnic formulas if available, because very curly hair can become brittle and damaged very easily, increasing the risk of hair loss.

These products have no harsh chemicals or additives that tend to damage brittle African American hair.

This will aid in the protection of healthy hair, as many of these environmental toxins have been linked to brittle hair and dry skin.

For hair that has truly been over processed, the Tigi Self Absorbed Mega Vitamin Shampoo will pack your hair with vitamins like A, B2, B6, D3 and E in an effort to fortify your brittle strands.

If your hair is overly dry and brittle, you should wet your hair and coat it with a thin layer of light conditioner before shampooing.

Over time, the ring will dry and become brittle and need to be replaced.

These spaces have cute names like Peppermint Stick Forest (formerly Candy Cane), Gum Drop Mountain and Crooked Old Peanut Brittle House (an original 1940's landmark).

Products to sell include one pound boxes of chocolates, peanut brittle, molasses chips, gourmet lollypops and See's chocolate candy bars.

See's Candy has a fundraising program where they will allow you to sell individual chocolate bars, lollipops, peanut brittle, and a selection of other items.

Candied Hazelnut Brittle - Your grocer's produce section should have a bin of hazelnuts ready for picking.

Baskets are available with chocolates, nuts, chews, peanut brittle, and even lollypops.

While there are grass skirts made of real palm, they are considerably more expensive than artificial grass skirts, and they may be prone to breakage as the palms become dry and potentially brittle.

Sirian and Rissa glared at each other with animosity that bespoke a brittle relationship.

The straw must have a certain length of "pipe" between the knots, must possess a clear delicate golden colour and must not be brittle.

The alloy of II parts gold and i part of zinc is, however, stated to be brittle.

Tellurium is a brittle silvery-white element of specific gravity 6.27.

These substances, and also carbon, sulphur, selenium and tellurium, render the metal very brittle.

For its extraction from zircon the mineral is heated and quenched in water to render it brittle, and then reduced to a fine powder, which is fused with three to four parts of acid potassium fluoride in a platinum crucible.

They have a shining, marble-grey and brown, thick, leathery outer coat, within which is a thin dark-coloured brittle coat.

The suddenly cooled metal is hard and brittle, because the cold 0-iron which it contains is hard and brittle.

Thus, though sudden cooling has very little effect on steel of o io% of carbon, it changes that of 1.50% from a somewhat ductile body to one harder and more brittle than glass.

The Tempering and Annealing of Steel.-But this sudden cooling goes too far, preserving so much 0-iron as to make the steel too brittle for most purposes.

Why, then, is this material malleable, though the common grey cast iron, which is made up of about the same constituents and often in about the same proportion, is brittle ?

Thus, first, for the brittle glass-hard cementite there is gradually substituted the relatively harmless temper graphite; and, second, even this is in part removed by surface oxidation.

These two classes of properties tend to exclude each other, for, as a general rule, whatever tends to make iron and steel hard and strong tends to make it correspondingly brittle, and hence liable to break treacherously, especially under shock.

Although the presence of 1.50% of manganese makes steel relatively brittle, and although a further addition at first increases this brittleness, so that steel containing between 4 and 5.5% can be pulverized under the hammer, yet a still further increase gives very great ductility, accompanied by great hardness-a combination of properties which was not possessed by any other known substance when this remarkable alloy, known as Hadfield's manganese steel, was discovered.

Sudden cooling makes the metal extremely ductile, and slow cooling makes it brittle.

The iron for most engineering purposes needs chiefly to be strong and not excessively brittle.

Though all true cast iron is brittle, in the sense that it is not usefully malleable, i.e.

Second, though the brittleness should be lessened somewhat by the decrease in the extent to which the continuity of the strong matrix is broken up by the graphite skeleton, yet this effect is outweighed greatly by that of the rapid substitution in the matrix of the brittle cementite for the' very ductile copper-like ferrite, so that the brittleness increases continuously (RS), from that of the very grey graphitic cast irons, which, like that of soapstone, is so slight that the metal can endure severe shock and even indentation without breaking, to that of the pure white cast iron which is about as brittle as porcelain.

The permissible phosphorus-content is lessened by the presence of either much sulphur or much manganese, and by rapid cooling, as for instance in case of thin castings, because each of these three things, by leading to the formation of the brittle cementite, in itself creates brittleness which aggravates that caused by phosphorus.

It is only the pressure of increasing demand that makes marketable hard pelts with harsh brittle hair of nondescript hue, and these would, naturally, be the last to attract the notice of dealers.

The Asiatic, African and South American varieties are, with the exception of those taken in the mountains, poorly furred and usually brittle and therefore of no great service.

Many from Russia are dyed black for floor and carriage rugs; the hair is brittle, with poor underwool and not very durable; the cost, however, is small.

The dressing is hard and brittle.

The hair is, however, brittle and is not at all durable.

The fur is a yellowish brown and rather harsh and brittle and has no underwool.

A small number of very pretty guanaco and vicuna carriage rugs are imported into Europe, and many come through travellers and private sources, but generally they are so badly dressed that they are quite brittle upon the leather side.

The fur, apart from a clumsy appearance, is so brittle, however, as to be of scarcely any service whatever.

White hares are frequently sold as white fox, but the fur is weak, brittle and exceedingly poor compared to fox and possesses no thick underwool.

The wood of an old tree, on the other hand, has lost a great part of its toughness, and is of bad colour, brittle and often predisposed to decay.

In this way the disease is spread rapidly, continually eating into the timber, which is first rendered brittle, and then reduced to powder.

Tin is too weak and brittle a metal to be employed alone for any but small objects.

The fracture is conchoidal, and the material is brittle.

It varies somewhat in consistency, being sometimes soft, elastic and sticky; often closely resembling india-rubber; and occasionally hard and brittle.

An alloy was formed of two parts silver, one-third copper and one-sixth lead; to this mixture, while fluid in the crucible, powdered sulphur in excess was added; and the brittle amalgam, when cold, was finely pounded, and sealed up in large quills for future use.

A very weak current gives a pale and brittle deposit, but as the current-density is increased up to a certain point, the properties of the metal improve; beyond this point they deteriorate, the colour becoming darker and the deposit less coherent, until at last it is dark brown and spongy or pulverulent.

Cuprous sulphide, Cu 2 S, occurs in nature as the mineral chalcocite or copper-glance, and may be obtained as a black brittle mass by the direct combination of its constituents.

Recently prepared fibre is always stronger, more lustrous, softer and whiter than such as has been stored for some time - age and exposure rendering it brown in colour and harsh and brittle in quality.

Owing, however, to the woody and brittle nature of the fibre, it has to undergo a preliminary treatment peculiar to itself.

The pioneers of the jute industry, who did not understand this necessity, or rather who did not know how the woody and brittle character of the fibre could be remedied, were greatly perplexed by the difficulties they had to encounter, the fibre spinning badly into a hard, rough and hairy yarn owing to the splitting and breaking of the fibre.

The coating of lime or mortar is soft and brittle, and consequently the young oysters can easily be detached with a stout knife.

Antimony is a silvery white, crystalline, brittle metal, and has a high lustre.

Antimony compounds when heated on charcoal with sodium carbonate in the reducing flame give brittle beads of metallic antimony, and a white incrustation of the oxide.

At this temperature the bacterial bodies are extremely brittle, and are thus readily broken up. The study of the nature of toxins requires, of course, the various methods of organic chemistry.

The scorifier is taken from the muffle in a pair of tongs and the contents poured into a mould, the lead forming a button in the bottom while the slag floats on top. When cold, the contents of the mould are taken out and the lead button hammered into the form of a cube, the slag, which is glassy and brittle, separating readily from the metal, which is then ready for cupellation.

Thus arsenic, antimony, bismuth, tin or zinc render the metal brittle, so that it fractures under a die or rolling mill; copper, on the other hand, increases its hardness, makes it tougher and more readily fusible.

A nitride appears to be formed when nitrogen is passed over heated iron, since the metal is rendered brittle.

On exposure to the air it becomes dry, hard and brittle.

It is brittle, and when hammered readily breaks up into a powder of angular grains.

For road-mending flint, though very hard, is not regarded with favour, as it is brittle and pulverizes readily; binds badly, yielding a surface which breaks up with heavy traffic and in bad weather; and its fine sharp-edged chips do much damage to tires of motors and cycles.

Bronze containing about 7 parts of copper to 1 of tin is hard, brittle and sonorous, and can be tempered to take a fine edge.

Another variety, obtained from the Prosopis dulcis, a leguminous plant, is called gum mesquite or mezquite; it comes from western Texas and Mexico, and is yellowish in colour, very brittle and quite soluble in water.

They are generally opaque and solid, and often brittle.

The time of sowing, the quantity of seed per acre (about three bushels) and the method of gathering and retting are very similar to those of flax; but, as a rule, it is a hardier plant than flax, does not possess the same pliability, is much coarser and more brittle, and does not require the same amount of attention during the first few weeks of its growth.

A cold gust of wind ripped brittle brown leaves from the limbs of old oak tree, tossing them carelessly in front of the headstone below.

Darkness clung to the brittle pages, resisting even direct firelight.

She'd given up her own, and to invite hope when she needed to focus on stopping the demon for good…her resolve was too brittle to consider any other fate.

In all cases with my sets, the badges stored in the brittle plastic bags have yellowed " .

Feed supplements containing biotin and methionine may help to aid good quality hoof growth, especially for those horses with naturally brittle feet.

Osteoporosis Osteoporosis -- or brittle bones -- is one of the major health concerns for older women.

Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson) barely survives being born with a rare disease that leaves his bones extremely brittle.

The critical load for adhesion failure is easiest to identify in the case of a hard, relatively brittle film on a softer substrate.

Will you get a call saying your film is too brittle?

This version also has a red plastic comb binding, which with age has tended to become quite brittle.

Poor quality modern papers which have become brittle will not be copied.

You know, the days when you feel so brittle, like a slightest gust of wind might knock you down.

A steel wire coat hanger could be used to show brittle fracture after ' working ' in the plastic stage.

A material that undergoes very little plastic deformation is brittle.

Material heterogeneity and loading history are fundamental to the initiation and evolution of distributed brittle deformation.

Finally the brittle skin is peeled away to reveal beautifully delicate markings and smoky blushes.

Larvae of other echinoderms are also present in the plankton, like those of sea urchins, sea cucumbers and brittle stars.

Belgium is banning several products containing fluorine because it causes ' brittle bone disease ' .

This was also dangerous for already brittle areas of iron gall ink.

Darkhawk smashed the now brittle bone golem to shards with his clawed fists and stepped toward the nagpa.

The piece is then fired again in a raku kiln to a point where the glaze has melted enough to form a brittle skin.

The properties can be excellent in spite of the fact that freshly formed high-carbon martensite is brittle.

Cryogenic milling is used to break down some metals which become brittle at low temperatures.

Among the brittle stars you see occasional Dahlia Anemones in pink or orange or white.

Frequent tillage during a fallow year exposes the brittle, fleshy rhizomes to be gathered or they may dry out in hot weather.

The dry lichen thallus is brittle, so fragments can be broken off easily and transported by wind or by animals.

Fissures, filled with calcite and sand, were pointed out, thought to be due to brittle fracture, as tectonic uplift occurred.

In 1450 Basil Valentine referred to it by the name "wismut," and characterized it as a metal; some years later Paracelsus termed it "wissmat," and, in allusion to its brittle nature, affirmed it to be a "bastard" or "half-metal"; Georgius Agricola used the form "wissmuth," latinized to "bisemutum," and also the term "plumbum cineareum."

Hmmm. ' A brief moment of brittle silence was broken by spluttering noises from Mark Turner (of Track and Classics) beside me.

Paul had tried to place a bolt to ease the take-off, but the brittle, weathered surface rock had foiled his valiant attempts.

Cast iron is usually ornate and is very brittle.

The chemical restructuring of the hair shaft can result in dry, brittle, and lusterless hair.

If you have weak, brittle, fine or naturally kinky hair, chances are you will not be able to mimic the same effect that Jennifer Aniston's hair has on its viewers.

Everyone's hair is unique, and some strands may be naturally weaker or more brittle, making it far more difficult to grow long hair.

For example, if your hair is a bit brittle, you'll want to look for a hair style that helps to minimize that by choosing a look that needs only minimal styling products in order to look great.

To avoid dry, brittle hair, use a heating cap or sit under a dryer with conditioner to infuse moisture into the hair.

Avoid blow drying long hair every day, as it is drying and damaging to the hair, and may require that the hair be cut off to look its best if it becomes dry and brittle.

The naturally coarse, dry and brittle nature of black hair leaves many African American women suffering from hair loss.

Another competing brand is Nasco Turtle Brittle, which is composed of larger turtle pellets and is endorsed by the Department of Herpetology at Atlanta, Georgia's Zoo Atlanta.

A sluggish thyroid is suspected to contribute to thin, brittle hair, while a thyroid in overdrive may create limp, greasy-looking hair.

A lack of calcium may encourage osteoporosis, a disease most prevalent in women, and causes the bones to become brittle.

Adequate intake of vitamins essential for healthy hair is important for you to prevent brittle and dull hair.

Not enough vitamin D in the body can cause thin and brittle bones, which leads to rickets in children and a very common disease in adults called osteoporosis.

The 1992 and 1993 Cadillac DeVille had vacuum lines and solenoids that often become brittle and crack, requiring replacement.

Your bones tend grow brittle with age -- osteoporosis -- especially for women.

The elastic in the waistband of the underwear will also be dry and brittle.

Silk wrap nails definitely lend the nails an attractive look and are a great choice if your nails are weak, brittle, cracked or otherwise damaged.

According to a study by Harvard Medical School, brittle nails are a common condition.

The fuel, wood or charcoal, which served both to heat and to deoxidize the ore, has so strong a carburizing action that it would turn some of the resultant metal into " natural steel," which differs from wrought iron only in containing so much carbon that it is relatively hard and brittle in its natural state, and that it becomes intensely hard when quenched from a red heat in water.

Sun damage causes wicker and rattan chairs to be dry and brittle.

If zinc be cast into a mould at a red heat, the ingot produced is laminar and brittle; if cast at just the fusing-point, it is granular and sufficiently ductile to be rolled into sheet at the ordinary temperature.

Wood charcoal is a hard and brittle black substance, which retains the external structure of the wood from which it is made.

The hair covering the body is long, coarse, and of a peculiarly brittle and pith-like character, breaking easily; it is generally of a greyish-brown colour, sometimes inclined to yellowish-red, and often variegated with lighter patches.

Cubic zirconia stones are more brittle and softer than diamonds and should be stored individually to prevent scratches, nicks, or damage caused by rubbing against other jewelry.

Despite the fact that the stone is one of the hardest known substances on the planet, its very rigidity makes it brittle and easily cracked under sharp blows.

Silk wraps are ideal for women who suffer from weak, brittle, stubborn or dry nails.

Gold and Zinc.-When present in small quantities zinc renders gold TABLE II.-Gold brittle, but it may be added to gold in larger quantities without destroying the ductility of the precious metal; Peligot proved that a triple alloy of gold, copper and zinc, which contains 5.8% of the lastnamed, is perfectly ductile.

Aleppo galls (gallae halepenses) are brittle, hard, spherical bodies, in.

When shreds and nails are used, short thick wire nails and " medicated shreds " are the best; the ordinary cast iron wall nails being much too brittle and difficult to drive into the wall.

The essential characteristic of wrought iron was its nearly complete freedom from carbon; that of steel was its moderate carbon-content (say between 0.30 and 2.2%), which, though great enough to confer the property of being rendered intensely hard and brittle by sudden cooling, yet was not so great but that the metal was malleable when cooled slowly; while that of cast iron was that it contained so much carbon as to be very brittle whether cooled quickly or slowly.

From all the preceding the tiny dik-diks (Madoqua) of NorthEast Africa differ by their hairy noses, expanded in some species into short trunks; while the widely spread klipspringer, Oreotragus saltator, with its several local races, is unfailingly distinguishable by its rounded blunt hoofs and thick, brittle, golden-flecked hair.

It forms a grey brittle mass, having a conchoidal fracture; it is very deliquescent, combining very energetically with water to form caustic potash.

Ginseng of good quality generally occurs in hard, rather brittle, translucent pieces, about the size of the little finger, and varying in length from 2 to 4 in.

Moreover, the coals which deoxidized the iron would inevitably carburize some lumps of it, here so far as to turn it into the brittle and relatively useless cast iron, there only far enough to convert it into steel, strong and very useful even in its unhardened state.

However this may be, very soon after man began to practise hot-forging he would inevitably learn that sudden cooling, by quenching in water, made a large proportion of his metal, his steel, extremely hard and brittle, because he would certainly try by this very quenching to avoid the inconvenience of having the hot metal about.

Beta (13) iron, an unmagnetic, intensely hard and brittle allotropic form of iron, though normal and stable only in the little triangle GHM, is yet a state through which the metal seems always to pass when the austenite of region 4 changes into the ferrite and cementite of regions 6 and 8.

They may, for instance, be glandular or stinging, as in the common stinging nettle, where the top of the hair is very brittle, easily breaking off when touched.

The coalitions, once so brittle as to break at the first strain, had now been hammered into solidity by his blows.

The more brittle condition of the Latin papyri found at Herculaneum has been instanced as the evil result of this re-making of the material.

Of the Characeae many are so exceedingly brittle that it is best to float them out like sea-weeds, except the prickly species, which may be carefully laid out on bibulous paper, and when dry fastened on sheets of white paper by means of gummed strips.

Rubber slowly absorbs oxygen when exposed to air and light, the absorption of oxygen being accompanied by a gradual change in the characteristic properties of rubber, and ultimately to the production of a hard, inelastic, brittle substance containing oxygen.

Iron renders the metal hard and brittle; arsenic, antimony and bismuth (up to 0.5%) reduce its tenacity; copper and lead (1 to 2%) make it harder and stronger but impair its malleability; and stannous oxide reduces its tenacity.

Aluminium, iron, platinum and many other metals may thus take up so much carbon as to become brittle and unforgeable.

The faience is thick and clumsy, having soft, brittle and very light pale.

Similarly, bell-metal is harder, more sonorous and more brittle than either of its components.

The presence of minute quantities of cadmium, lead, bismuth, antimony, arsenic, tin, tellurium and zinc renders gold brittle, 2 ' 0 15th part of one of the three metals first named being sufficient to produce that quality.

The alloys of tin and gold are hard and brittle, and the combination of the metals is attended with contraction; thus the alloy SnAu has a density 14.243, instead of 14.828 indicated by calculation.

Bismuth is a very brittle metal with a white crystalline fracture and a characteristic reddish-white colour.

Bright, glance or pitch coal is another brilliant variety, brittle, and breaking into regular fragments of a black colour and pitchy lustre.

When present in other metals, even in very small quantity, bismuth renders them brittle and impairs their electrical conductivity.

The crystals look like antimony, and are brittle, and so hard as to scratch glass and rubies; their specific gravity is 4.25.

The fact that a comparatively brittle material like concrete can be subjected not only to heavy loads but also to the jar and vibration from the blows of a heavy pile ram makes it appear as if its nature and properties had been changed by the steel reinforcement.

By whichever way treated, the tobaccoleaf after curing is brittle and cannot be handled without crumbling to powder.

A brittle potassium alloy of silver-white colour and lamellar fracture is obtained by calcining 20 parts of bismuth with 16 of cream of tartar at a strong red heat.