Re: Daguerreotypes again-mercury

From: Phillip Murphy <pmurf@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: Daguerreotypes again-mercury
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 06:41:35 -0500

> The discovery of the Daguerreotype process
> was made with considered and methodical experimentation.
> A major contributor to this discovery was his partner
> Niepce who's goal was to create a new form of lithography.
> Unfortunately, Niepce died unexpectedly and the research
> which they had shared became the groundwork for the experiments
> that led to the discovery of the Daguerreotype.

That's not likely. Niepce disclosed his knowledge (bitumen based) to
Daguerre when Daguerre visited Chalon at the end of 1820's. Daguerre
did not seem to have significant achievement at that time. After that,
Niepce did not contribute much to the pool of knowledge between the
two. Daguerre wrote Niepce about silver iodide, but Niepce did not
seem to be interested. Niepce and Daguerre probably did not get what
they expected from their contract. So, practically speaking, Daguerre
was on his own since then. Is seems that no one saw Daguerre working
on his project and there is no hard evidence I could find about how he
discovered development. The cupboard story is the only plausible
explanation given in the literature I found so far.

I could not find any record of methods of his experimentation that
lead to discovery of his development (other than stepwise removal of
chemicals from the cupboard). As you see in their modified contract,
Daguerre cared more about him getting the credit than money. A man
with that kind of spirit would disclose details of methods at some
point if it were discovered as a result of methodical experimentation
as you proposed.

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"You have to realize that junk is not the problem in and of itself.
Junk is the symptom, not the problem."
(Bob Dylan 1971; source: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton)