FLINT, 1, a maritime county (77) of North Wales, between Lancashire
and Denbigh, of which a detached portion lies to the N. of Shropshire;
low stretches of sand form its foreshore, but inland it is hilly, with
here and there a picturesque and fertile valley in which dairy-farming is
extensively carried on. 2, a seaport (5), on the estuary of the Dee, 13
m. NW. of Chester; has ruins of a castle with interesting historical
associations; in the neighbourhood are copper-works and lead and coal
mines.

FLINT, ROBERT, a theologian, born in Dumfriesshire; professor of
Divinity in Edinburgh University; an eminent scholar, a vigorous thinker,
and a man of broad sympathies, who takes a deep interest in all the vital
questions of the times, and has contributed to the solution of them; has
written on Theism, the Philosophy of History, Socialism, &c.; _b_. 1838.

FLOATING ISLANDS are sometimes formed of masses of driftwood on
which debris, vegetation, &c., gradually form a soil, but are more
commonly portions of river banks detached by the force of the current
when swollen and drifted put, sometimes as much as 100 m., to sea,
carrying with them plants, reptiles, and larger animals, and thus
contributing to the distribution to distant shores of animal and
vegetable life; they are to be met with off the mouths of the larger
American, Asian, and African rivers, and sometimes in inland seas and
lakes; Derwent Lake, in England, has a notable one, which sinks, and
rises periodically; they are also made artificially in districts subject
to floods as asylums of refuge.

FLODDEN, BATTLE OF, fought on Flodden Hill, a low spur of the
Cheviots, 6 m. S. of Coldstream, between James IV. of Scotland and the
English under the Earl of Surrey on the 9th of September 1513, which
resulted in the crushing defeat of the Scots, who lost their king and the
flower of their nobility, an event celebrated in Jean Elliot's "Flowers
of the Forest"; a spirited account is given in the sixth canto of Scott's
"Marmion."

FLOOD, HENRY, an Irish Nationalist, trained at Dublin and Oxford
Universities; entering the Irish Parliament, he by his fervid oratory
soon won a place in the front rank of Irish politicians; in 1769 he was
put on trial for killing an opponent in a duel, but was acquitted; from
1775 to 1781 he was Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; to Grattan's Irish Bill of
Right he offered bitter opposition, holding it to be an altogether
inadequate measu