What is "liquor of flints"

Flint \Flint\, n. [AS. flint, akin to Sw. flinta, Dan. flint; cf. OHG. flins flint, G. flinte gun (cf. E. flintlock), perh. akin to Gr. ? brick. Cf. Plinth.]

1. (Min.) A massive, somewhat impure variety of quartz, in color usually of a gray to brown or nearly black, breaking with a conchoidal fracture and sharp edge. It is very hard, and strikes fire with steel.

2. A piece of flint for striking fire; -- formerly much used, esp. in the hammers of gun locks.

3. Anything extremely hard, unimpressible, and unyielding, like flint. ``A heart of flint.'' --Spenser. Flint age. (Geol.) Same as Stone age, under Stone. Flint brick, a fire made principially of powdered silex. Flint glass. See in the Vocabulary. Flint implements (Arch[ae]ol.), tools, etc., employed by men before the use of metals, such as axes, arrows, spears, knives, wedges, etc., which were commonly made of flint, but also of granite, jade, jasper, and other hard stones. Flint mill.

   1. (Pottery) A mill in which flints are ground.

   2. (Mining) An obsolete appliance for lighting the miner at his work, in which flints on a revolving wheel were made to produce a shower of sparks, which gave light, but did not inflame the fire damp.
      --Knight.

      Flint stone, a hard, siliceous stone; a flint.

      Flint wall, a kind of wall, common in England, on the face of which are exposed the black surfaces of broken flints set in the mortar, with quions of masonry.

      Liquor of flints, a solution of silica, or flints, in potash.

      To skin a flint, to be capable of, or guilty of, any expedient or any meanness for making money. [Colloq.]

Liquor \Liq"uor\ (l[i^]k"[~e]r), n. [OE. licour, licur, OF. licur, F. liqueur, fr. L. liquor, fr. liquere to be liquid. See Liquid, and cf. Liqueur.]

1. Any liquid substance, as water, milk, blood, sap, juice, or the like.

2. Specifically, alcoholic or spirituous fluid, either distilled or fermented, as brandy, wine, whisky, beer, etc.

3. (Pharm.) A solution of a medicinal substance in water; -- distinguished from tincture and aqua.

   Note: The U. S. Pharmacopoeia includes, in this class of preparations, all aqueous solutions without sugar, in which the substance acted on is wholly soluble in water, excluding those in which the dissolved matter is gaseous or very volatile, as in the aqu[ae] or waters.
   --U. S. Disp.

   Labarraque's liquor (Old Chem.), a solution of an alkaline hypochlorite, as sodium hypochlorite, used in bleaching and as a disinfectant.

   Liquor of flints, or Liquor silicum (Old Chem.), soluble glass; -- so called because formerly made from powdered flints. See Soluble glass, under Glass.

   Liquor of Libavius. (Old Chem.) See Fuming liquor of Libavius, under Fuming.

   Liquor sanguinis (s[a^]n"gw[i^]n*[i^]s), (Physiol.), the blood plasma.

   Liquor thief, a tube for taking samples of liquor from a cask through the bung hole.

   To be in liquor, to be intoxicated.

n. (context obsolete English) A solution of silica, or flints, in potash.