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 measure; in 1783 he was returned to the English House of Commons, but failed to make his mark (1732-1791).

FLORA, goddess of the blossom of flowers and the spring, an early Roman divinity; had in the time of NUMA a flamen (q. v.) to herself.