34 
Art of malting Gun-Flints, 
has even been suspected that they could hardly be af- 
forded at the low price they bear, if in its first state the 
material were not even soft. But the art is extremely 
simple in its process ; it requires a very small number of 
instruments, a short apprenticeship, and a very moderate 
degree of skill to form, by mere fracture, figures so ac- 
curate, faces so smooth, outlines so direct, and angles so 
neat, that the stone seems as if cut on the wheel of the 
lapidary. Five or six small blows of the # hammer, dur- 
ing one minute of time, are sufficient to produce the same 
perfection of figure as would require more than an hour’s 
labour, if the sections were to be made by grinding 
against harder substances, or friction with emery. Less 
than a farthing will pay for a gun-flint from the hand of 
the workman, but fifty times that sum would be insuffi- 
cient for its purchase if it were fashioned by any other 
process. 
The author regularly proceeds to examine first the ma- 
terial best adapted to the use in question, the instruments 
employed, and the manipulation by which the stones are 
fashioned. 
With regard to the material, every kind of stone, ca- 
pable of producing strong sparks when struck against 
steel, may be used as a gun-flint, if it can but be fashion- 
ed by simple and cheap means. But even in this case 
there are some motives of preference ; such, for exam 
pie, as that the scintillation should be produced with the 
least possible blow, and with no considerable wear or 
abrasion of the steel. These reasons of predilection are 
in favour of the siliceous stones, when compared with 
those which are called quartzose. But the silex or flint, 
properly so called, possesses not only this kind of supe- 
riority, but another property, that it is more particularly 
susceptible of being broken into fragments or plates, 
which require but very little labour to give them the re- 
quisite form and dimensions. 
