INDIAMAN. A term occasionally applied to any ship in the East India trade, but in strict parlance the large ships formerly officered by the East India Company for that trade, and generally armed.
INDIAN INK. Properly Chinese; compounded of a peculiar lamp-black and gum.
INDIAN OCEAN. The great Oriental Ocean.
INDRAUGHT. A particular flowing of the ocean towards any contracting part of a coast or coasts, as that which sets from the Atlantic into the Straits of Gibraltar, and on other coasts of Europe and Africa. It usually applies to a strong current, apt to engender a sort of vortex.
INDUCED MAGNETISM. The magnetic action of the earth, whereby every particle of soft iron in certain positions is converted into a magnet.
INDULTO. The duty formerly exacted by the crown of Spain upon colonial commodities.
INEQUALITY, Secular. A small irregularity in the motions of planets, which becomes important only after a long lapse of years. The great inequality of Jupiter and Saturn is a variation of their orbital positions, caused by the disturbing action of one planet on the other.
INERTIA. The passive principle by which bodies persist in a state of motion or rest, and resist as much as they are resisted. (See [Vis Inertiæ].)
INFANTRY. Foot soldiers of the regular army; so called throughout Europe after the original Spanish "infanteria," or troops of the infanta or queen of Spain, who first developed on a large scale the importance of the arm.
INFERIOR CONJUNCTION. Mercury or Venus is said to be in inferior conjunction, when it is situated in the same longitude as the sun, and between that luminary and the earth.