42 



IGNATIUS ILITHYIA. 



tiic theory uf his art. Madame de Stael said of 

 l.im, that there was not an accent or a gesture, fur 

 - ..id) lillaiiii could not account as a philosopher and 

 an artist. 



1( ; N ATI US LOYOLA. See Loyola, and Jesuits. 

 IGNATIUS, SAINT; one of the lathers of the 

 church, who suffered martyrdom at Rome, during; the 

 third persecution of the Christians. He was a Sy- 

 rian, and is said to have been an immediate disciple 

 of St John the Evangelist, who, in the sixty-seventh 

 year of the Christian era, committed the church at 

 Antioch to his pastoral superintendence. There he 

 presided for upwards of forty years, when the empe- 

 ror Trajan, after his triumph over the Dacians, enter- 

 ing the city, exercised many severities towards the 

 Christians, and summoned the prelate himself before 

 Mm. Ignatius conducted himself with such boldness 

 in the imperial presence, that he was forthwith sent 

 to Rome, and ordered to be exposed in the amphi- 

 theatre to the fury of wild beasts. This dreadful 

 death he underwent with much fortitude, having 

 availed himself of the interval between his sentence 

 and its execution to strengthen, by his exhortations, 

 the faith of the Roman converts. Of his works, 

 there remain seven epistles, edited, in 1645, by arch- 

 bishop Usher, republished by Cotelerius, in 1672, in 

 his collection of the writings of the apostolical 

 fathers, and again printed, in 1697, at Amsterdam, 

 with notes, and the commentaries of Usher and Pear- 

 son. An English translation of them, from the pen 

 of archbishop Wake, is to be found among the works 

 of that prelate. There are some other letters, of 

 minor importance, which are generally considered 

 to have been attributed to him on insufficient au- 

 thority. 



IGNITION (glowing heat) denotes that state of 

 certain bodies, in which, from being exposed to a high 

 temperature, they appear luminous. Two kinds of 

 ; gnitible bodies are distinguished ; namely, such as 

 become entirely changed by ignition, as charcoal, 

 sponge, &c., and such as retain their former state, as 

 iron, for example. The first is a regular combustion, 

 in which, however, no gas rises from the bodies in 

 the form of flame. The second is a mere heat. Of 

 the metals, many liquefy before they become ignited ; 

 for example, lead and tin. Iron, on the other hand, 

 becomes ignited long before it melts. Three stages 

 of ignition may easily be distinguished. Iron, at 

 about 770 degrees of Fahrenheit, becomes brownish 

 red, which is the commencement of ignition. At a 

 higher temperature, it becomes red hot ; at about 

 1000 degrees of Fahrenheit, it becomes white hot, 

 and emits a very white, brilliant light. If gradually 

 cooled, ignition diminishes in the same inverse order. 

 In this gradual transition, we perceive all the differ- 

 ent colours of light. Hence the Dynamists conclude 

 that caloric, in ignition, actually combines with 

 bodies, and does not merely penetrate their pores, as 

 the Atomists teach. 



IGNIS FATUUS. See Meteor. 



IGUANA. These reptiles are thus characterized 

 by Cuvier : body and tail covered with small imbri- 

 cated scales ; the ridge of the back garnished with a 

 row of spines, or rather of elevated, compressed and 

 pointed scales ; under the throat, a compressed and 

 depending dewlap, the edge of which is attached to 

 a cartilaginous appendage of the hyoid bone. Their 

 thighs are provided with a similar arrangement of 

 porous tubercles with the true lizards, and their head 

 is covered with scaly plates. Each jaw is furnished 

 with a row of compressed triangular teeth, having 

 I li.-ir cutting edges serrated ; there are also two small 

 rows on the posterior part of the palate. There are 

 many species described by naturalists, most of which 

 ere natives of tropical America. They live for the 



most part on trees, but sometimes go into the water. 

 They feed on fruits, seeds, and leaves. The female 

 deposits her eggs, which are about the size of a 

 pigeon's egg, in the sand. Many of the species are 

 considered as great culinary delicacies by the natives 

 of the countries in which they are found. The com- 

 mon iguanas (/. tuberculata, Laur.) are eagerly 

 sought, especially in the spring. They are caught 

 by means of a noose attached to the end of a stick. 

 The iguana, although fonnidable in appearance, is 

 timid and defenceless. It is very active, though, 

 when it has taken refuge in a tree, it appears to de- 

 pend on the security of its situation, and permits 

 itself to be taken by its pursuers. Where the noose 

 cannot be conveniently used, it is stnick on the head 

 with a stick and stunned. They attain a great size, 

 being sometimes found five feet in length. The word 

 iguana is said, by some authors, to be derived from 

 the Indian hiuana, and, by others, to have originated 

 in the Javanese word leguan. 



ILDEFONSO, ST; a village containing La 

 Granja, a royal palace of the king of Spain, in Old 

 Castile, built in a mountainous country, by Philip V., 

 in imitation of Versailles ; six miles N. E. Segovia, 

 forty N. by W. Madrid. Population, 4887. The 

 exterior of the palace is not very magnificent, but 

 the interior contains a great number of valuable 

 paintings, statues, &c. The gardens are very mag- 

 nificent, being the chief ornament. The elevation 

 of the palace above the sea is 3789 feet, the highest 

 royal residence in Europe. The castle and gardens 

 of St Ildefonso cost about 45,000,000 of piastres. At 

 this place a peace was signed between the king of 

 Spain and the French republic, August 4, 1 795. 



ILI (Turkish for country); a word appearing in 

 geographical names, as Roumili (country of the Ro- 

 mans). 



ILIAD. See Homer. 



ILISSUS ; a rivulet which watered the plain of 

 Attica, and flowed down from the Hymettus (q. v.), 

 laved Athens, and was lost with the Cephissus in the 

 morasses. 



ILITHYIA ; among the Greeks, the goddess who 

 assisted women in childbirth. The name, which 

 some have derived from the Oriental languages, 

 appears to be purely Greek, and to signify she who 

 comes. This goddess, when her assistance is re- 

 quired, comes at the third call, and the female is 

 saved. Pausanias says that, not far from the chapel 

 of Serapis, at Athens, a temple was built to Ilithyia, 

 who, coming from the Hyperboreans, had assisted 

 Latona, when seized with the pangs of childbirth, in 

 Delos. The Cretans, on the contrary, believed that 

 Ilithyia was born at Amnisus, in the country of 

 Gnossus, and was a daughter of Juno. Thus there 

 were two Ilithyias, who are to be distinguished from 

 each other. According to Grecian mythology, Juno, 

 the institutress and protectress of marriage, had two 

 daughters Hebe, or the pure virgin, and Ilithyia, 

 or she who bears. Juno therefore could send or 

 refuse the assistance of her daughter Ilithyia, and is 

 often represented herself as the bringer into light 

 (Lucina), as is evident from the passage in Terence, 

 Juno, Lucina, fer opem. According to Horace, in 

 his secular ode, Ilithyia and Lucina were the same. 

 The second goddess of the name was a divinity 

 regarded, in Asia Minor, as the emblem of the crea- 

 tive and all-nourishing power of nature, and her 

 worship spread from Media along the shores of the 

 Black sea to Asia Minor. The image of this god- 

 dess, in heaven, was the moon ; on the earth, a cow. 

 Her principal abode was Ephesus, and her worship 

 being confounded with that of the children of Latona 

 in later times, she became the Artemis of the Greeks, 

 and the Diana of the Romans. The number of 



