FLINTSHIRE 154 FLOOB ments, and flint flakes. Such relics of early man had been found with the bones of an elephant, in 1715, in the gravel of London, England. Similar remains were exhumed at Hoxne, near Diss, in 1797, by John Frere. About 1833 or 1834, the Rev. Mr. McEnery, a Roman Catholic priest, discovered similar ones in Kent's Hole, Torquay, in Devon, England. From about 1841, M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, collected flint implements from the valley of the Somme, in France, pub- lishing the result in his "Celtic An- tiquities," in 1847. Many flint implements have been found in the S. and E. of England, in Bedfordshire, in Suffolk, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and in the N. and N. E. of London, in Essex, in Buckinghamshire, etc. The oldest ones are palaeolithic, and are unpolished; the newer neolithic, and are polished. The implements from the Somme are of the former kind, and are the oldest known. According to Prof. Boyd Dawkins, the river-drift man in- habiting the valleys of the Somme, the Thames, etc., was older than the cava man of Brixham, Kent's Hole, and other caverns. The former lived in the middle part of the Pleistocene (Lyell's Upper Pliocene) period and inhabited Palestine, India, and this country as well as Europe. FLINTSHIRE, a maritime county of North Wales, with an area of 257 square miles and a coast line of about 20 miles. Only about one-seventh of the area is cultivated. The most important industry is mining, which includes coal, iron, lead, copper, and zinc. The chief rivers are the Dee, Alyn, and Clwyd. Pop. about 70,000. The chief town is Flint. Other important towns are St. Asaph, Holywell, and Hawarden. FLOATING DOCK. See DOCK. FLODDEN, a village of England, Northumberland county, near the Scot- tish border, 5 miles S. E. of Coldstream; memorable as being the scene of the battle of Flodden Field, one of the most sanguinary conflicts recorded in British history. James IV., King of Scotland, having invaded England with a large force, was encountered here, Sept. 9. 1513, by an English army under the Earl of Surrey. James, who was destitute of every martial quality except bravery, was killed, and his army totally defeated. The loss on the part of the Scots was extremely great. Besides the king him- self, no fewer than 12 earls, 13 barons, and 5 eldest sons of peers, with a vast number of knights and persons of dis- tinction, and probably about 10,000 com- mon soldiers, were left dead on the field. The English loss was about 7.000. This is by far the most calamitous defeat recorded in Scottish annals; and there was scarcely a family of distinction in the kingdom who did not lose one or more members in it. Archibald Douglas, the great Earl of Angus, for instance, was killed, together with his six sons and 200 knights and gentlemen of the name of Douglas. FLOETZ ROCKS, in geology, a name applied by Werner and his followers to the Secondary rocks of Germany, be- cause they were supposed to occur most frequently in flat, horizontal beds. FLOODS are caused by excessive rains, giving rise to an overflow of the rivers; by the bursting of the banks of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs ; by the sudden melt- ing of ice and snow; and by irruptions of the sea, produced by high tides, wind storms driving the sea water inland, earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, and the bursting of sea banks. The felling of forest trees throughout extensive tracts of mountainous country also tends to make the rivers which have their ori- gin there swell rapidly after a heavy rainfall (see Forestry) ; good and com- plete drainage of land has the same tendency. FLOOR, in building, the surface on which a person walks in a room or house. It may be of masonry, brick, tiles, con- crete, earth, boards. The term usually refers to boards laid close together, and nailed to timbers which are termed joists. A single floor is one in which the joists pass from side to side of the house, rest- ing upon wall-plates and sustaining the floor above, and the ceiling of the room below. A double floor is one in which the primary timbers are binders which rest upon the wall-plates, and support the floor or bridging joists and the ceiling joists. A framed floor has an additional member, which assumes the primary po- sition. The girder rests on the wall- plates and supports the binding joists, whose ends rest thereupon. The binding joists support the bridging or floor joists and the ceiling joists, as before de- scribed. In geology and archaeology, the part of a cavern corresponding in situation to the floor of a house. As a nautical term the bottom part of the hold on each side of the keelson ; the flat portion of a ves- sel's hold. In hydraulic eng^ineering, the inner piece of the two which together form the bucket of an overshot water wheel. In mining, the bottom of a coal seam; the underlay on which the coal, lead, or iron ore rests. To take the floor: To rise to address a public meeting; also to stand up to dance (Irish).
