murram

Etymology

noun

1. (East Africa, India) Laterite.
   142. Floor for natives to be paved if for cots, otherwise to be murram or chunam, say 6″ rubble or concrete, plastered. 1873, Frank Robertson, Engineering Notes, E. & F. N. Spon, page 313
   The southern band of schists is also seen on the southern side of the Haladgáon hills in a murram quarry and as a band separating the quartzite and manganese-ore of Gumgáon hill. 1909, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, Geological Survey of India, page 845
   Laterite or murram, having a tendency to harden upon exposure, is often satisfactory when traffic is light, but it tends to corrugate or break down with heavier use. 1975, William Adams Hance, The Geography of Modern Africa, Second Edition, Columbia University Press, page 27
   page xxvi: Murram: Generally iron concretions formed in tropical soils, transitional to, or an early stage of, laterite formation. page 73, in figure: Brownish red loam with murram in subsoil page 75: In ferruginous tropical soils and ferrallites (Table 10) much iron released in weathering is often redeposited in the form of gravelly concretions locally termed murram. The word ‘laterite’ has been used for two distinct forms of precipitated iron. 1976, Norman Francis Hughes, “Manual of Applied Geology for Engineers”, in Institution of Civil Engineers, Thomas Telford
   They are a familiar sight to most travellers of the murram roads of Uganda. 1984, Jonathan Kingdon, East African Mammals: An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume IIB: Hares and Rodents, University of Chicago Press, page 441
   Tracks and roads were at first rough and rutted, and quickly became quagmires in the rainy seasons before being surfaced first with "murram" gravel, later with tarmac. 1991, Donald B. Freeman, A City of Farmers: Informal Urban Agriculture in the Open Spaces of Nairobi, Kenya, McGill-Queen's Press, page 33
   1991, Bernard Verdcourt, Boraginaceae, a volume of R.M. Polhill (Ed.), Flora of Tropical East Africa, A.A. Balkema, →ISBN, page 108, Hab. Grassland, bushland, often as a weed in plantations, cultivation edges, murram roadsides and other areas of bare soil; (?600–)1140–2040(–?2520) m.
   The soils vary from sandy, sandy clay and clay to shallow young soils of mainly murram or gravel. 2006, Robert Tripp, Self-Sufficient Agriculture: Labour and Knowledge in Small-Scale Farming, James & James/Earthscan, page 134
   Kenya's road network comprises 9,000km of bitaminised road, 27,000km of murram all-weather roads, and 27,000km of non-classified roads. 2006, Pascal Belda, Kenya, MTH Multimedia S.L., page 190