7
that the exact number in each is seen at a glance, as
also the day's addition: the workers being credited
accordingly, for pay is by the quantity made, and not for
the time employed in making.
Besides gun-flints, there are still large quantities of
tinder-box flints made at Brandon; and this is all the
more remarkable, considering how rare tinder-boxes now
are. It is almost impossible to meet with them even as
curiosities, and yet there is a good trade in tinder-flints;
but they all go to Spain and Italy, and even further off
than that. They are used by the people in very rural
districts, and by shepherds and others.
It is a curious fact that for travellers in uncivilized
regions, and especially in tropical and moist ones, the flint
and steel is more reliable than any other method of getting
fire. Matches, being of wood, are quickly rendered useless by
damp, whilst a soaking wet flint and steel (if such a thing
were possible) will strike a spark; and, as for tinder,
there are innumerable materials in almost all countries
exceedingly suitable and easily dried sufficiently for the
purpose, such materials being mossy fibre, fungi, decayed
wood, woolly coating of leaves, fibres from seed capsules,
and many others. We thus see how and why it happens
that an apparently obsolete appliance is still in demand
in some localities and under certain circumstances.
Now of "strike-a-lights." as they are called, there are
two recognised kinds, viz., square flints resembling large
musket flints, which were introduced from France in the
18th century, and were, and arc, therefore, known as
"Frenchmen"; and roughly circular, oval, or ovoid flints
known as "Englishmen." These Englishmen are very
remarkable, because they very closely resemble the Stone-
Age implement known as a Scraper.
These scrapers are found in almost all parts of the world
where Stone-Age man can be traced; and although it is
very probable that large numbers of so-called neolithic
scrapers are merely very old discarded "Englishmen",
at the same time these scrapers certainly were made in
neolithic times, for they still exist amongst the Esquimaux
and other tribes, who may be regarded as survivals of