Fleak

The uſes indeed of the forenamed Plants are ſo univerſall, and take place ſo in every affaire of Man, that if it vvere lavvfull to be a little merry in ſo ſerious a matter, a man might not unfittingly apply that verſe of the Poet [Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters from the Black Sea), book IV, 3-35] to this ſo generall a commodity; / Omnia ſunt homini tenui pendentia filo. / That all the buſineſſes of Men do very much depend upon theſe little long fleaks or threds of Hempe and Flaxa.

[M]any of them made use of flint for knives, […] this flint is of no regular form, and if they can only obtain a part of it, an inch or two in length that will cut they are satisfyed, they renew the edge by fleaking off the flint by means of the point of an Elk's or deer's horn.