IRON PILLAR , DELHI

Standing at the center of the Quwwatul Mosque the Iron Pillar is one of Delhi's most curious structures.Dating back to 4th century A.D, it highlights ancient India's achievements in metallurgy. The pillar is made of 98 per cent wrought iron and has stood 1,600 years without rusting or decomposing.

It stand 7.3 m tall, with one meter below the ground; the diameter is 48 centimeters at the foot, tapering to 29 cm at the top, just below the base of the wonderfully crafted capital; it weighs approximately 6.5 tones, and was manufactured by forged welding.It bears an inscription which states that it was erected as a flagstaff in honor of the Hindu god, Vishnu, and in the memory of the Gupta King Chandragupta II (375-413). How the pillar moved to its present location remains a mystery.

Mystery of Delhi's Iron Pillar

The pillar is now located in Delhi, although one knows almost for certain that it was moved to that place from somewhere in Madhya Pradesh about a thousand years ago. Who had the pillar moved to its present location, and why, is unknown. The most densely argued chapter however is on the corrosion-resistant nature of this iron pillar, the P-content and the S-content of the low carbon mild steel of which it is made, the process of rust protection, the color of whatever rust there is, spectroscopic analysis, are all themes, something that has led to its being widely regarded as a 'miracle' of technology, given the times in which the pillar was forged and erected.

Mystery unraveled

On July 18, Experts at the Indian Institute of Technology have resolved the mystery behind the 1,600-year-old iron pillar in Delhi, which has never corroded despite the capital's harsh weather.

Metallurgists at Kanpur IIT have discovered that a thin layer of "misawite", a compound of iron, oxygen and hydrogen, has protected the cast iron pillar from rust.

The protective film took form within three years after erection of the pillar and has been growing ever so slowly since then. After 1,600 years, the film has grown just one-twentieth of a millimeter thick.

The high phosphorous content is a result of the unique iron-making process practiced by ancient Indians, who reduced iron ore into steel in one step by mixing it with charcoal.

Modern blast furnaces, on the other hand, use limestone in place of charcoal yielding molten slag and pig iron that is later converted into steel. In the modern process most phosphorous is carried away by the slag.

It has also come to light that the pillar was erected by Kumara Gupta of Gupta dynasty that ruled northern India in AD 320-540.

HOW DID NAPOLEON DIE??

NAPOLEANS DEATH

Even though the postmortem showed stomach cancer, rumours spread that the exiled French emperor had not died of natural causes. The controversy .. ..

Bonaparte was first treated on St. Helena by an Irishman named Dr.O'MEARA.He discribed the symptoms of the patient as : swollen gums with hole , insomnia, swollen legs, hot flushes and attackes of migraine.

He stated that Napoleon suffered from mild scurvy due to unbalanced diet.

Following his defeat at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, French emperor Napolean Bonaparte (born 1769) was sent into exile on the tiny island of St.HELENA in the South Atlantic.

Napoleaon spent five years on the british ruled island before he died on May5,1821.

During his exile Napoleaon's health declined steadily.Since September 1819. Bonaparte had been under the cure of DR. ANTOMMARCHI. The doctor had performed a postmortem, observed by five british doctors.He confirmed that the emperor had died of STOMACH CANCER.But many did not believe the official post mortem, and, until a few years ago, rumour prevailed that he died of ARSENIC POISONNING.

UNEXPLAINED INCONSISTENCIES

However, RENE MAURY , a modern French scientist described the symptoms as those of arsenic poisoning. Forensic toxicologists refuted the statement.

Maury put forth another argument, that pointed that Napoleon's body had not decomposed in the coffin even in 1840 (arsenic delays decomposition of the dead body).

The problem with this thoery was that the damp condition of St.Helena could have slowed down the decmposition process.

In the early 1960s, tests were carrried out on Napoleon's hair samples.The results shot down the arsenic theory. A second round of testing in 1994 revealed arsenic in small quantities.The poison could have come from food and water on St.Helena.

POSSIBLE SUSPECTS

1. An agent of the Bourbons , the french royal family, who were restored to the throne in 1814 , and owed this gain to Napoleon's defeat.

2. British doctors, who could have easily poisoned the emperor.

3.COUNT de MONTHOLON , responsible for the house hold of the emperor , however was the real suspect according to Maury.According to the emperor's will he stood to receive large sum of money.

CONCLUSION

In October, 2005, a document was unearthed in Scotland that presented an account of the autopsy, which again seems to confirm Antommarchi's conclusion.More recent analysis of the etiology and pathogenesis of Napoleon's illness also suggests that Napoleon's illness was a sporadic gastric carcinoma of advanced stage.

The original post-mortem examination carried out by Francesco Antommarchi Napoleon died of stomach cancer without knowing Napoleon’s father had died of stomach cancer. concluded.

An extensive 2007 study found no evidence of arsenic poisoning in the organs, such as hem­or­rhag­ing in the lin­ing in­side the heart, and also concluded that stomach cancer was the cause of death.