FLINT CHIPS. 601 
Flint was formerly employed in the manufacture of finer varieties of glass, 
which was termed "flint-glass." 
Flint is used in the manufacture of fine earthenware, being for this purpose 
first calcined, then thrown into cold water when it is easily broken, and it is then 
ground into powder. 
It has long been known that flint would strike fire with steel, and it has been 
thought that during the process a chemical combination of silica and iron takes 
place, causing great increase of heat. Pliny informs us that Clias was the first to 
strike fire with flint or to utilize it. 
Before matches were invented, flint with steel and tinder were used for 
making fires, and the use of gun-flints immediately preceded that of per. ussion 
caps. Percussion caps began to be used with fire-arms between 1820 and 1830, 
and were entirely adopted by the British army by 1840. 
When a boy, I owned a gun with a flint-lock which my father had altered to 
a percussion lock. That was between thirty and forty years ago. 
The material of which gun-flints were made was chiefly derived from the 
English chalk beds. In the selection of gun-flints the best nodules were chosen, 
selecting those whose form was more nearly globular. They should have a 
greasy lustre, be particularly smooth and fine-grained. The colors were sorhe 
shades of brown and uniform throughout. The translucency should be such as 
to render letters legible through a slice one-fiftieth of an inch thick, and the 
fracture smooth and uniform, and slightly conchoidal, the last property being 
very essential. 
We copy from Ures' Dictionary of Arts and Sciences the mode of working 
the flint. The tools used were : 
1. An iron hammer of one to two pounds weight with a square head — a 
steel hammer being harder would shatter the iron too much. 
2. A well hardened steel hammer of ten to sixteen-ounce weight having 
two points, the handle being so inserted that the points of the hammer are nearer 
the hand of the workman than the centre of gravity of the mass. 
3. A disc hammer, or roller, being a small steel wheel two and one-third 
inches in diameter, and twelve-ounce weight, having a handle or axle six inches 
long passing through its centre. 
4. A steel chisel. 
5. A steel file to sharpen the chisel. 
The process of making flints was as follows : 
1. The workman seated upon the ground places the nodule of flint upon 
his left thigh and with slight strokes of his square hammer he divides it into pieces 
of about one and a half pounds weight. 
2. The workman holds the lump in his left hand and strikes with his 
pointed hammer upon the edges of the great planes produced by the first break- 
ing. Scaly portions are thus detached nearly one and a half inches broad, two 
and a half inches long and one-sixth of an inch thick, and slightly convex below. 
3. The workman fixes on a border for the striking edge, then the two sides 
