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flint
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Flint
Compact, hard, brittle mineral (a variety of chert), brown, black, or grey in colour, found as nodules in limestone or shale deposits. It consists of cryptocrystalline (grains too small to be visible even under a light microscope) silica, SiO2, principally in the crystalline form of quartz. Implements fashioned from flint were widely used in prehistory.
The best flint, used for Neolithic tools, is floorstone, a shiny black flint that occurs deep within chalk.
Because of their hardness (7 on the Mohs scale), flint splinters are used for abrasive purposes and, when ground into powder, added to clay during pottery manufacture. Flints have been used for making fire by striking the flint against steel, which produces a spark, and for discharging guns. Flints in cigarette lighters are made from cerium alloy.
© Research Machines plc 2008. All rights reserved. Helicon Publishing is a division of Research Machines plc.
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