The
Gun-Flint Industry of Brandon.
Twenty-seven years ago (1886) I spent a short Summer
holiday at Brandon for the purpose of studying the making
of Gun-flints, which at that time was fairly prosperous.
I wrote a report on the subject, which was published,
together with photographs illustrating the stages in the
manufacture of a Gun-flint.
Since then so much has happened, especially in
connection with the antiquity of man, that I thought it
might be of interest to many of my friends to re-publish
my notes and observations, bearing as they do upon the
all important question of the fracturing of flint and the
conditions under which those fractures occur.
There is, sometimes, I think, too much importance
attached to the appearance of certain flints said to be
of human workmanship, and upon which, therefore,
theories are formed and even histories built.
A study of Brandon work together with a close
questioning of gun-flint knappers, will however, throw such
light upon flint fractures as will enable us to discriminate
between flints broken intentionally by man, and that
enormous ''other half" broken by such natural agencies
as frost, mountain torrents, shore wave action, or even
by wind driven sand; to say nothing of the fractures
of loose flints on cultivated land caused by the impact of
agricultural implements, which I know as a matter of
fact, has given rise to a lot of discussion as to so-called
secondary chipping, &c.
But to our subject! The manufacture of Gun-flints
still lingers in the little town of Brandon, situate on the
borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, and this spot was no doubt
at one time of much importance, for it is stated that
Brandon supplied gun-flints for the whole of the British
Army.
Even before that, the town made flints, for fire
making, with steel. And who can limit the use of the
flint and steel ? Matches, as we know them, are but of