Flint
a form of quartz. It is composed of silica together with a little lime, oxide of iron, water, and carbon. It is related to chalcedony, but it has a light gray or brownish color and lacks luster. It is of concretionary origin and occurs as nodules or sheets in many parts of the world. The chalk cliffs of France and England are noted for flint.
Owing to its proverbial hardness, and the ease with which it may be chipped into flakes having sharp cutting edges, flint was very likely the first material used by prehistoric man for knives, hatchets, arrowheads, and spear points. Great numbers of these ancient implements have been found in localities thought to be the sites of prehistoric villages, both in the Old World and in the New. Flint was at one time the chief dependence of the civilized world as a means with which to kindle a fire. In making a fire the flint was held in one hand and a piece of steel in the other. A succession of rapid, glancing blows produced a shower of sparks that fell into a handful of tow, lint, dry leaves, punk, or some other form of tinder. The slender blaze was fed with care. The traveler or hunter caught in a rain was by no means certain of kindling a fire. Flint and steel were replaced by matches about 1835.
In the old flint-lock musket, the flint was held in a slot in the hammer. As it descended it struck a grinding, glancing blow on a piece of steel affixed to the barrel of the gun. The sparks fell into a pan containing a pinch of powder called priming. In case the priming burned without exploding the charge of powder in the barrel, it was said to flash in the pan-a most exasperating, but by no means infrequent experience. The soldiers of the American Revolution carried flint-lock muskets. The flint-lock gave way to the percussion cap about the same time that matches came on the market.
The cutting of flints for these purposes was at one time an important industry. Flint is now used chiefly as an ingredient of potter's clay. In 1903 $157,000 worth was ground for this purpose in the United States alone.
The making of flints is an interesting process. It is the oldest industry in England. It is centered at the village of Brandon, Suffolk County, amid the treeless fens of Ely. Primitive implements and relics found here indicate that Brandon was a source of the flint remains of Europe, chracterizing what is known as the Stone Age. Antiquarians even venture the assertion that flints have been quarried and shaped at Brandon for anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 years. The vocabulary of the peasantry contains words not heard elsewhere in the world. It is quite supposable, at least, that these words were used thousands of years ago by prehistoric man.
At the present time the industry consists of four steps,--quarrying, quartering, flaking, and knapping. The flint district is a common. There are hundreds and thousands of old pits. They are known as "Grimes' graves." Permission to dig a fresh pit is obtained readily. The diger preempts a spot by palcing a piece of chalk at each corner. He first digs a square pit as deep as one would care to jump into; then excavating underneath at one side, he digs another pit like the first; then a third, and so on; thus constructing a huge underground, zig-zag series of steps reaching down forty or fifty feet to the layer of chalk in which the best nodules of flint are found. Huge chunks weighing up to 200 pounds are mined and pushed up to the surface by means of the great underground stairway described. The chunks are dried in the shade. They then pass into the hands of a skillful workman, who splits them into brick-like squares by means of a heavy, peculiar hammer. One who does not know just where and with what force to strike will break a flint nodule into comparatively worthless fragments. The quarters, as the nicely squared pieces are called, then go to the flaker. This is the most difficult part of the whole business. An expert flaker steadies the quarter with one hand and works along its edge with a long steel hammer held in the other hand. His hammer rises and falls with such rapidity that long, flat, knife-shaped flakes, one for each blow, fall into a basket at the rate of 5,000 to 7,000 a day. Although the flaker does his work with apparent ease, he requires to have a quick, mechanical eye, and to know the angle, the spot, and the force requisite to a nicety. None but an expert can flake. A bungler simply wastes material. The knapper breaks the flakes into oblong pieces and trims them to size. He wears a heavy apron and sits on a stool. He holds the flakes in his left hand, and a light knapper's hammer in the other. A six-inch iron stake driven into the upper end of a block serves him for an anvil. From four to five flints are made from a flake. A skillful knapper turns out from 2,000 to 3,000 flints a day. Eight sizes are recognized in the trade,--the long Dane, fowling, musket, carbine, horse pistol, single, rifle, and pocket pistol. The largest size is 1 3/4 inches long by 1 inch in width; the smallest is 5/8 of an inch long by 1/2 inch in width. The knapper counts up his finished flints much as a banker counts coin. He separates them into sizes and seeeps them out with a nail, five at a time. For each hundred, he lays aside a counter. He packs his flints in sacks containing from 5,000 to 20,000 each, and ships them to Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, or London.
Before the invention of matches and percussion caps, the flint industry was an enormous one. The East India Company, the Hudson Bay Company, and the various countries of Europe placed enormous contracts with the smallarms makers who derived their supplies from Brandon. The Turkish government bought 11,000,000 gun flints for the Crimean War. The industry is by no means dead. The British government forbids the sale of improved firearms to the natives of India and Africa. There is still a large trade in gun flints with the Arabs, who purchase from British sources. In many parts of India and Africa, too, the climate is so rainy that matches become worthless and the flint and steel are still relied upon to kindle a fire. In certain parts of Turkey, steel, flint, and tinder box are used by the older peasants. They see no use in spending money for matches.
No attempt has ever been made to introduce machinery. There are no large flint factories. Independent workmen clink away at their trade independently, or at most work for wages.