Dr Mitchell on the Manufacture of Gun-Flints. 39 



there is no longer any good flint left, but only the outer white 

 crust, or such parts as are made of greyish matter, he throws 

 the refuse into a fourth cask which is beside them, and it is from 

 time to time carried out of doors, and thrown into a heap of rub- 

 bish. The three casks with the flakes are intended each of them 

 for a separate workman, who has to finish them into flints, as 

 musket flints, carbine flints, horse-pistol flints 3 single-barrel 

 flints, double-barrel flints, and pistol flints. The workmen who 

 divide the flakes into flints, are called nappers, and one cracker 

 is enough to keep three of them employed. A napper has be- 

 fore him a block not unlike a butcher's block, upon which a 

 piece of iron is nailed, from which rises a thin piece of iron three 

 inches in length, and only a sixth of an inch in thickness, and 

 brought to a coarse edge. The napper uses a hammer which is 

 merely a plate of steel, extending two inches on each side of the 

 handle, and an inch in breadth, and not above a sixth of an 

 inch in thickness. He takes into his left hand one of the flakes, 

 and lays it over the little anvil on the block, and with his ham- 

 mer he breaks it into three or four flints. All that he has to do 

 after that, is to see which edge will be best for the flint, and 

 from the other he breaks a little off, and the whole is complete. 



Forty years ago, according to Dolomieu, the making of gun- 

 flints was carried on in the communes of the department Loir- 

 et-Chez, viz. Noyers, CouflPy, and Mennes ; and in one commune 

 of the Indre, named that of Lye. The inhabitants of these 

 communes employed in this branch of industry are said to have 

 been about 800 in number.* 



When we look at a gun-flint, and observe its elegant shape, 

 and consider how admirably it is adapted for the purpose in- 

 tended, we should be apt to think it had been ground into that 

 shape with great labour and skill. Such, indeed, is the manner 

 in which gun-flints, if we may so call them, are made in Ger- 

 many from agates and conglomerates ; but they are much less 

 efficient, and more expensive. 



* He further states, that one workman had emigrated from Mennes, and 

 established himself on the banks of the Siene, at La Roche Guion, where he 

 had been thirty years. He also states, that in some other parts of France 

 the art was practised, though only to a small extent. It was also carried on 

 in the territory of Vicenza, in Italy, and in some of the cantons of Sicily. 



