white alkali

American  

noun

1. Agriculture. a whitish layer of mineral salts, especially sodium sulfate, sodium chloride, and magnesium sulfate, often occurring on top of soils where rainfall is low.

2. refined soda ash.

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white alkali British  

noun

1. refined sodium carbonate

2. any of several mineral salts, esp sodium sulphate, sodium chloride, and magnesium sulphate, that often appear on the surface of soils as a whitish layer in dry conditions

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Example Sentences

A brazen glare lay over the scene, while up from the white alkali flats rose a wave of heat that was suffocating.

From Project Gutenberg

They had come out on the level plain, and before them for several miles stretched the white alkali of the Nevada Desert.

From Project Gutenberg

They soon swept by Tad, and on out over white alkali desert once more.

From Project Gutenberg

A brightly splotched variety lives in Arizona's Painted Desert, a drab single-toned variety on the drab soil of Oregon, a white variety on the white alkali soil of the Amargosa Desert, a black variety on the West's black lava belts.

From Time Magazine Archive

The spot is surrounded by a white alkali desert, covered in places with salt and alkali deposits.

From Project Gutenberg