Flooding

Any overflowing; - especially an exce ive discharge of blood from the uterus. Flood'mark, n. The mark or line to which the tide rises; high-water mark. Flook, n. Same as FLUKE, q. v. Flook'ing, n. (Mining.) An interruption or shifting of a lode or vein of ore by cro grain or fi ure; cro flookan; flookan. Flook'y, a . See FLUKY.. Floor, (flore,) n. [A. S. flor ; Ger. flur ; Gael. lár , the ground; W. llawr , a level surface.) ( Arch .) Any one of the stages or platforms which separate the succe ive stories of a building from which the stories themselves are generally named in their order; as ground-floor, first-floor, second-floor, The entire platform which separates any room from another, above or below it, consists of three distinct portions, - the joists , the floor ing of the room above, and the ceiling of the room be low. The joists are narrow beams of timber about 22 inches in thickne , and varying in depth according to the extent of span from wall to wall. As the walls of the succe ive stories are raised to the proper height, the joists are laid acro about 15 or 18 inches apart, and the ends are imbedded in the masonry. In building a row of houses, care should be taken to keep seven inches at least of masonry between the ends of the joists bridg ing the space from party-wall to party-wall, to prevent them from communicating the flames from one house to another by reason of their contiguity, should a fire break out in any one of them. To give greater stiffne and steadine to the joists, they are often connected by short cro -stuts of timber nailed transversely to the joists and acro each other in the form of the letter X, at intervals of two or three feet The ceiling is made by nailing laths acro the bottom of the joists and covering them with two or three coatings of plaster. (See PLASTERING.) The flooring consists of red or yellow deal plauks about nine or eleven inches in width. The boards are laid transversely on the joists, and secured to them by long floor-brads, after having been pre ed tightly together by the action of a screw that can be attached to the joists in the position required, and at any part, like a vice, during the proce of laying down and nailing the boards When a very close floor is required, the planks must be jointed together by means of a groove and tongue. (See JOINERY.) The thickne of the boards varies from one to 11⁄2 inches. After the planks have been nailed to the joists, the brads are driven below the surface with a punch, and the edges of the boards are plained, that any inequalities may be removed and the whole extent of flooring rendered perfectly level. The kind of floor that has just been described is a single-joisted floor, and is that which is usually found in buildings of an ordinary character, where the span from wall to wall does not exceed twenty-four or twenty-five feet. In small houses, the joists over a span of this extent are often rendered more steady by allowing them. to bear on the framed partition between rooms below them, on the semi-partitions on either side of folding-doors, When the span exceeds this length, and the platforms are intended to support any great weight, as in a concert-room, a embly rooms, or warehouses, framed doors are adopted, in which girders are introduced, which are generally of wrought iron, on account of the flexibility and elasticity of this material, and by which the great strain of the weight above is divided and sustained These girders are connected by binding-joists, and bridging-joists are attached to them above, on which the flooring is laid, and ceiling-joists below, to carry the ceiling of the room or rooms beneath. Fire-proof floors may be made by filling a framework, peculiarly constructed for the purpose, with concrete or cement, on which tiles may be laid to form the flooring, or joists of timber, on which planks may be laid down and nailed in the ordinary way. -A flat, hard surface made of loam, lime, ., used in some kinds of busine , as in malting. ( Naut ) The horizontal portion of a ve el's bottom on each side of the keelson. To get the floor. To get an opportunity of taking part in a debate.