--According to Ure's Dictionary, the best stones to choose for
making gun-flints are those that are not irregular in shape; they should
have, when broken, a greasy lustre, and be particularly smooth and
fine-grained; the colour is of no importance, but it should be uniform in
the same lump; and the more transparent the stones the better. Gun-flints
are made with a hammer, and a chisel of steel that is not hardened. The
stone is chipped by the hammer alone into pieces of the required
thickness, which are fashioned by being laid upon the fixed chisel, and
hammered against it. It takes nearly a minute for a practised workman to
make one gun-flint.
Gunpowder.--To carry Gunpowder.--Wrap it up in flannel or leather, not
in paper, cotton, or linen; because these will catch fire, or smoulder
like tinder, whilst the former will do neither the one nor the other.
Gunpowder carried in a goat-skin bag, travels very safely. Mr. Gregory
carried his in the middle of his flour; each flour-bag (see p. 69),
during his North Australian expedition, had a tin of gunpowder in the
middle of it.
To make Gunpowder.--It is difficult to make good gunpowder, but there is
no skill required in making powder that will shoot and kill. Many of the
negroes of Africa, make it for themselves--burning the charcoal,
gathering saltpetre from salt-pans, and buying the sulphur from trading
caravans: they grind the materials on a stone.
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