Some other sites of the gun-flint manufacture in former times are mentioned by Mr. Skertchly, as for instance, Clarendon near Salisbury; Gray’s Thurrock, Essex; Beer Head, Devon; and Glasgow; besides several places in Norfolk and Suffolk. In France the manufacture of gun-flints is still carried on in the Department of Loir et Cher,[56] and various other localities are recorded by Mr. Skertchly.[57] In proof of the antiquity of the use of flint as a means of producing fire, I need hardly quote the ingenious derivation of the word Silex as given by Vincent of Beauvais:—“Silex est lapis durus, sic dictus eò quod ex eo ignis exiliat.”[58] But before iron was known as a metal, it would appear that flint was in use as a fire-producing agent in combination with blocks of iron pyrites (sulphide of iron) instead of steel. Nodules of this substance have been found in both French and Belgian bone-caves belonging to an extremely remote period; while, as belonging to Neolithic times, to say nothing of discoveries in this country, which will subsequently be mentioned, part of a nodule of pyrites may be cited which was found in the Lake settlement of Robenhausen, and had apparently been thus used.[59] In our own days, this method of obtaining fire has been observed among savages in Tierra del Fuego, and among the Eskimos of Smith’s Sound.[60] The |16| Fuegian tinder, like the modern German and ancient Roman, consists of dried fungus, which when lighted is wrapped in a ball of dried grass and whirled round the head till it bursts into flames. Achates, as will shortly be seen, is described by Virgil as following the same method. The name of pyrites (from πῦρ) is itself sufficient evidence of the purpose to which this mineral was applied in early times, and the same stone was used as the fire-giving agent in the guns with the form of lock known as the wheel-lock. Pliny[61] speaks of a certain sort of pyrites, “plurimum habens ignis, quos vivos appellamus, et ponderosissimi sunt.” These, as his translator, Holland, says, “bee most necessary for the espialls belonging unto a campe, for if they strike them either with an yron spike or another stone they will cast forth sparks of fire, which lighting upon matches dipt in brimstone (_sulphuratis_) drie puff’s (_fungis_) or leaves, will cause them to catch fire sooner than a man can say the word.”