walker's clayn.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xvi. lxxxiii. 874 A certeyn maner þer of [brimstone] is y-cleped ‘gleba’, as it were walkers cley, and serueþ oonliche to walkeres vse.

1582 in R. Hakluyt Princ. Navigations (1599) II. i. 163 Then we haue also for scowring our clothes earths and claies, as Walkers clay.

1583 L. Mascall tr. Profitable Bk. Spottes & Staines A ij b Then take a quantity of walkars claye, called Fullars earth.

1616 G. Markham tr. C. Estienne et al. Maison Rustique (rev. ed.) 593 A soile standing vpon Walkers clay or marle..is verie good for Vines.

1776 tr. R. E. Raspe Acct. some German Volcanos ii. xxxii. 83 Great lumps of a fine tough walker clay.

1847 J. Allies in Archaeol. Jrnl. 4 147 A species of fuller's earth called ‘walker's clay’, which is found in some places in this county.

1849 M. A. Lower Eng. Surnames I. 116 At Alfrich, co. Worcester, there are some thin strata of unctuous clay of a whitish hue, still called ‘walker's clay’.

1890 H. B. Guppy Homes of Family Names Great Britain 62 The early fashion was to tread out the cloth; and even now in the north of England fuller's earth is called ‘walker's clay’.

1964 W. Eitel Silicate Sci. I. 249 Walker's clay mica from Scotland is a trioctahedral 1 M d structure (mostly in mixed layer relation with montmorillonite) and related to synthetic phlogopite (in nature with biotite).