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The Origin of Flint

Abstract

SIR E. RAY LANKESTER';S difficulties as to the origin of flint (NATURE, vol. xcix., p. 283) would be largely removed if it were more generally recognised that the vast majority of flints in all formations, excluding he occasional examples deposited along fjssures, are chemical replacements of the limestones in which they occur. Microscopic observation of thin sections has, of course, furnished the most powerful confirmation of this view. The difficulties as to the cause of such replacement are similar in the case of all “concretions” where the original rock-substance has been removed and new material has been substituted. We now know that even iron pyrites may thus replace silicates or quartz, and that massive crystalline ores need not represent the infilling of cavities.

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COLE, G. The Origin of Flint . Nature 99, 324 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/099324b0

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