special forms, see Founding; Forge, Forging; Rolling-Mill; Wire.
IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE, The. An English association, organized by the iron trade of the north of England, the first meeting taking place in London, February 25, 1869. Its object is the discussion of practical and scientific questions connected with the manufacture of iron and steel. There are two general meetings each year, one in May, in London, and the autumn one in other cities, not always in Great Britain, for the institute has met in Paris, Vienna, Brussels, and New York. Since 1874 it has annually presented the Bessemer gold medal, for some invention or notable paper. The Institute publishes the semi-annual Journal of Iron and Steel Industry, containing original papers and abstracts from other publications.
IRONBARK TREE. A name given in Australia to certain species of Eucalyptus (q.v.), and particularly Eucalyptus siderophloia, on account of the extreme hardness of the bark. These trees attain a height of 80 or 100 feet, and a circumference near the base of 10 to 12 feet. The timber, which is very valuable for shipbuilding and other purposes in which hardness and durability are required, is rated as one of the strongest of Australian woods; its tensile strength exceeds that of hickory.
IRON CHANCELLOR, The. A name given to Bismarck.
IRON CHEST, The. A play by George Colman the Younger (1796), based upon Godwin's novel Caleb Williams.
IRON CITY, The. Pittsburg, Pa., so called from its iron and steel industries.
IRONCLAD. See Ship, Armored.
IRON CROSS (Ger. Eisernes Kreuz). A Prussian military order or decoration, revived during the war with France in 1871. It was first instituted by Frederick William III. as a reward for distinguished services in war. It consists of a Maltese cross, made of iron, edged with silver, and worn suspended from the neck or at the buttonhole. The superior decoration of the grand cross, a cross of double the size, is reserved for officers of high rank, who have successfully carried out a campaign, won a decisive battle, or conducted a brave defense of a fortress or position.
IRON CROWN. The name of the old crown of the Lombards, still preserved in the Church of Saint John the Baptist at Monza. It is made of six pieces, and is adorned with twenty-two jewels, twenty-six golden roses, and twenty-four enamels. On the inside there is a circlet of iron, said to be formed from a nail used at the Crucifixion, given by Pope Gregory I. to the Lombard Princess Theodelinda. Before the twelfth century it was called the golden crown. It was used at the coronation of the Lombard Kings, and of the German Emperors as Kings of Italy. In 1805 Napoleon crowned himself at Milan with it. Later it was worn by two Austrian Emperors, and carried to Venice. After 1866 it was restored to Monza. Consult Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, vol. vi. (Oxford, 1880).
IRON DUKE, The. A popular sobriquet for the Duke of Wellington.
IRON GATE (Turk. Demīr-Kāpu). A celebrated pass on the Lower Danube, near Gladova, just below the point where the river leaves Hungary, where a spur of the Transylvanian Alps nearly barricades the river. In 1890 the demolition of the obstructions to navigation was begun by an Hungarian company, and in the course of ten years was practically completed. The work necessitated the excavation of nearly 1,200,000 cubic yards of rock, about half of which was in the river bed. For some distance there is an artificial waterway for vessels, through which there is an extremely rapid current.
IRON MASK, The Man in the (Fr. L'homme au masque de fer). The story of this mysterious prisoner confined at Pignerol, in the Bastille, and other French prisons in the reign of Louis XIV., has long excited a romantic curiosity in the minds of students of history. The first notice of him in print was given in Mémoires secrets pour servir a l'histoire de Perse (Amsterdam, 1745-46), in which the prisoner was identified with the Duke of Vermandois, a natural son of Louis XIV. and La Vallière, who had to expiate an offense against his half-brother, the Dauphin Louis, with imprisonment for life. This absurd assertion was without foundation; for the Duke of Vermandois died in 1683, whereas the prisoner is known to have died in 1703; but the confidence with which it was made caused a deep sensation, and the romance of Mouhy, L'homme au masque de fer, which immediately followed (Hague, 1740), was read with all the more avidity because it was prohibited by the Court. Voltaire, in his Siècle de Louis XIV., treated the anecdote historically, but without doing anything to unravel the mystery. The first authentic information with regard to the Man in the Iron Mask, therefore, was given by the Jesuit Griffet, who acted for nine years as confessor in the Bastille, in his Traité des différentes sortes de preuves qui servent à établir la vérité dans l'histoire (Liège, 1769). He quoted from the manuscript journal of Dujonca, the royal lieutenant of the Bastille, according to which Saint Mars, the Governor of the island of Sainte Marguerite, in September, 1698, brought with him to the Bastille a prisoner whom he had already had in custody at Pignerol. The prisoner's face was always kept concealed by a mask of black velvet. The journal also mentions his death on November 19, 1703, and that be was buried in the cemetery of Saint Paul. This is confirmed by the register of burials for the parish of Saint Paul, where the prisoner is mentioned under the name of Marchiel, Marchiali, or Marchioli. These two entries are the bare facts of the case, and upon them have been erected theories and hypotheses without number. Besides the earliest story already mentioned, there have been at least four other explanations as to the identity of the prisoner. Among the minor conjectures are those which connect him with Fouquet, the financial minister of Louis XIV., and with the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II. of England, to mention only a few of many. An addition to the article on the subject in the Dictionnaire philosophique freely states the opinion that the prisoner was an elder brother of Louis XIV. The writer, who was probably the editor of the work, makes the prisoner an illegitimate son of Anne
