FLEURUS 152 FLINT claims had long ceased to be enforced or justified, it remained till the accession of George IV., by whom it was abolished. FLEURUS, a town of Belgium, in the province of Hainault, near the Sambre, 7 miles N. E. of Charleroi. This place is noted for four important battles having taken place in its vicinity. The first took place on Aug. 30, 1622, between the Span- iards under Gonsalvo of Cordova, the general of the Catholic League, and the troops of the Protestant Union com- manded by the Bastard of Mansfeld and the Dukes of Brunswick and Saxe- Weimar. Both sides claimed the advan- ia";e. The second was fought July 1, 1390, Montmorency, Duke of Luxem- bourg, defeating the Prince of Waldeck, one of the most able of the generals of the Augsburg League. The third was that in which General Jourdain defeated the Imperialists under the Prince of Coburg, June 26, 1794. The fourth, more com- monly known as the battle of Ligny, took place on June 16, 1815. On that day Bliicher was defeated by Napoleon. FLEURY, a small village in France, about six miles N. W. of Verdun, at which were located some of the outer works defending Verdun during the World War. It was the center of some of the heaviest fighting during the attack on Verdun by the Germans, in June, 1916, known as the battle of Mort Homme. FLEURY, CLAUDE (fle-re'), a French Church historian; born in Paris, France, Dec. 6, 1640. His learning and unaffected simplicity made him a notable figure at the court of Louis XIV., and later at that of Louis XV., whose con- fessor he became. An "Ecclesiastical History" (1691-1720) forms his claim to enduring renown; the work coming down to 1414. He also vrrote: "A History of French Law" (1674) and a "Historical Catechism" (1679). He died in 1723. FLEXIBILITY, in physics, the prop- perty which all bodies possess to a greater or less degree, and which is evinced in their disposition to yield or change their form in a direction at right angles to their length, through their own weight or by means of any pressure or strain applied to them. Pieces of the same material differ from each other in the degi'ee of flexibility they exhibit, in proportion to their length and thickness. Thus it is evident that a cylindrical bar pf iron an inch in diameter and 20 feet in length will exhibit a far greater de- gree of flexibility than another which is only half the length, and has a diameter of two inches. Materials also exhibit a greater degree of flexibility in one condi- tion than in another; metals, for in- stance, yielding far more readily to pres- sure when heated than when cold. The degree of flexibility possessed by any material is denoted by the extent to which it will bend, or by the weight which it will support without breaking. This property must not be confounded with that of elasticity; elastic bodies will return to their former shape when they have been bent or altered by pressure in any way; but bodies which possess flexibility without elasticity do not return to their original form in all cases. The consideration of the deflection or flexi- bility of beams of wood and iron bars and girders, as well as of ropes and chains, and other materials, is an im- portant point in the construction of buildings, bridges, and engineering works of various kinds. FLEXNER, ABRAHAM, an Ameri- can educator, born in Louisville, Ky., in 1866, brother of Simon Flexner. He graduated from Johns Hopkins Uni- versity in 1883 and took post-graduate courses at Harvard and at the Uni- versity of Berlin. After teaching for several years he was appointed an expert of the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad- vancement of Teaching, in 1908, serving until 1912. He was assistant secretary of the General Education Board from 1912 to 1917, and secretary from 1917. He wrote "The American College" (1909) ; "Medical Education in the United States and Canada" (1910); "Medical Educa- tion in Europe" (1912) ; and "A Modern School" (1916). He also contributed educational papers to periodicals. FLEXNER, SIMON, an American physician and medical authority, born in Louisville, Ky., in 1863. He received a common school education in his native city and took his medical degree from the University of Louisville in 1889. He took post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins and at the Universities of Strassburg and Berlin. From 1891-1899 he was a pro- fessor in Johns Hopkins University and from 1899-1904 in the University of Pennsylvania. In 1903 he became direc- tor of the laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, with which he has been connected ever since. He has published numerous treatises and monographs upon pathological and bac- teriological subjects, and his work has been recognized abroad, where he has been made a member of many of the learned fraternities. FLINT, a crypto-crystalline variety of quartz. It is usually gray, smoke- brown, or brownish black. If derived, as it mostly is, from the cretaceous forma-
