a. [f. LITHOLOGY + -IC + -AL.] Pertaining to lithology; relating to the nature or composition of stones.
1797. Monthly Mag., III. 50. A description of the lithological and mineralogical empire.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 237. To put the student upon his guard against too implicit a reliance on lithological characters as tests of the relative ages of rocks. Ibid., Gloss., Lithological, a term expressing the stony structure or character of a mineral mass. We speak of the lithological character of a stratum as distinguished from its zoological character.
1881. Ramsay, in Nature, No. 618. 420. The various formations, by help of the fossils they contain, have been correlated in time, often in spite of great differences in their lithological characters.
Hence Lithologically adv., in regard to lithology; with respect to the nature of stones.
1845. Capt. Newbold, in Jrnl. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, XIV. 300. Ferruginous and coloured clays that sometimes, lithologically speaking, resemble laterite.
1872. W. S. Symonds, Rec. Rocks, iv. 84. The Aran range, with its mountain peaks,… resembles the rocks of Cader Idris lithologically.
