light. However the case may have been as to the means of procuring fire, it was not until some centuries after the invention of gunpowder that flints were applied to the purpose of discharging fire-arms. Beckmann,[1] in his "History of Inventions," mentions that it was not until the year 1687 that the soldiers of Brunswick obtained guns with flint-locks, instead of match-locks, though, no doubt, the use of the wheel-lock with pyrites had in some other places been superseded before that time.
I am not aware of there being any record of flints, such as were in use for tinder-boxes,[2] having been in ancient times an article of commerce: this, however, must have been the case, as there are so many districts in which flint does not naturally occur, and into which, therefore, it would have by some means to be introduced. Even at the present day, when so many chemical matches are in use, flints are still to be purchased at the shops in country places in the United Kingdom; and artificially prepared flints continue to be common articles of sale both in France and Germany, and are in constant use, in conjunction with German tinder, or prepared cotton, by tobacco-smokers. At Brandon[3] a certain number of "strike-a-light" flints are still manufactured for exportation, principally to the East and to Brazil—they are usually circular discs, about two inches in diameter. These flints are wrought into shape in precisely the same manner as gun-flints, and it seems possible that the trade of chipping flint into forms adapted to be used with steel for striking a light may be of considerable antiquity, and that the manufacture of gun-flints ought consequently to be regarded as only a modification and extension of a pre-existing art, closely allied with the facing and squaring of flints for architectural purposes, which reached great perfection at an early period. However this may be, it would seem that when gun-flints were an indispensable munition of war, a great mystery was made as to the manner in which they were prepared. Beckmann[4] says that, considering the great use made of them, it will hardly be believed how much trouble he had to obtain information on the subject. It would be ludicrous to repeat the various answers he obtained to his inquiries. Many thought that the stones were cut down by grinding them; some conceived that
