Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1895 — Flints. [ARTICLE]

Flints.

Probably few people are aware that there still exists in England a manufactory of gun and tinder-box flints, yet such is the case. The same methods are employed in the mining and fashioning of flints as in the stone age, with little alteration. In order to break flint into pieces of convenient size, the worker places the mass on his knee, and, Uy a dexterous blow with a hammer, shivers it into fragments as easily as if it were chocolate. The pieces are then split into flakes, and these, In ‘turn, are fractured into little squares which, with very slight trimming, become finished gun-flints. Most of the gun flints are exported to Zanzibar and other ports in communication with the interior of Africa; but, besides these, large quantities of flints for tinderboxes are still made at Brandon. Tin-der-box flints chiefly go to Spain and Italy for use in isolated districts.