s sometimes used among medical writers for the effect of sharp corrosive medicines or humours in wearing away the natural mucus which covers the membranes, and particularly those of the stomach and intestines. The word is composed of the Latin ab and rado, to share or scrape off.

Abrasion is also used to denote the wear and tear of Coins. The deficiency in the weight of the old worn coins, on their being called in to be recoinced, falls upon the public. Mr McCulloch reckons, that if the currency of the United Kingdom consisted wholly of gold, it would amount to at least sixty millions of sovereigns, and that the loss sustained by abrasion, including what results from shipwreck, fire, and other accidents, would amount to a hundredth part of the sum in circulation, or £600,000 annually.—McCuUoch's Treatises and Essays on Economical Policy, p. 33.

ABRAUM, a name that has been given by some writers to a species of red clay, used in England by the cabinet-makers, &c., to give a red colour to new mahogany wood. We have it from the Isle of Wight; but it is also found in Germany and Italy.