IRON IN ART. Iron work is a term used generally to denote anything made of iron, but specifically applied to the designing and handicraft of iron as a work of art.
The working of iron has engaged the activities of the human race from remote antiquity, especially in the continents of Europe and America. The metal ore exists in vast quantities in the soil, indeed there seems to be no limit to it, and each suc ceeding year records its discovery in some new place. The pure metal is obtained from the ore by the process of smelting, some primitive form of which was known in early times even by uncivilized races. It was not difficult to fill a cavity with ore and charcoal, and leave an opening for the wind to produce the currents necessary for fanning the flame and raising heat. Wood and charcoal were employed for producing the necessary heat, but in England, in 1611, a patent was taken out for smelting iron with coal, though 100 years passed before Abraham Darby, the first of that name, brought the process into common use.
The result was in the form of rough bars of iron called pigs.
The working of iron is referred to in China some thousands of years before the Christian era, and it is found in India at a later date. Its use was known in Chaldaea, Assyria and ancient Egypt. References in the Old Testament suggest that the He brews also were acquainted with it. The Greeks are credited with the art of casting statues in iron. Later the Romans profited by the Greeks' knowledge. Currency bars of iron which have been found by the hundred in various parts of England prove that the Roman occupiers found iron very useful as a medium of commerce.