"You have heard of the Daguerreotype. I have the instruments on the point of completion, and if it be possible I will yet bring them with me to Boston, and show you the beautiful results of this brilliant discovery. Art is to be wonderfully enriched by this discovery. How narrow and foolish the idea which some express that it will be the ruin of art, or rather artists, for every one will be his own painter. One effect, I think, will undoubtedly be to banish the sketchy, slovenly daubs that pass for spirited and learned; those works which possess mere general effect without detail, because, forsooth, detail destroys general effect. Nature, in the results of Daguerre's process, has taken the pencil into her own hands, and she shows that the minutest detail disturbs not the general repose. Artists will learn how to paint, and amateurs, or rather connoisseurs, how to criticise, how to look at Nature, and, therefore, how to estimate the value of true art. Our studies will now be enriched with sketches from nature which we can store up during the summer, as the bee gathers her sweets for winter, and we shall thus have rich materials for composition and an exhaustless store for the imagination to feed upon." An interesting account of his experiences with this wonderful new discovery is contained in a letter written many years later, on the 10th of February, 1855:-- "As soon as the necessary apparatus was made I commenced experimenting with it. The greatest obstacle I had to encounter was in the quality of the plates. I obtained the common, plated copper in coils at the hardware shops, which, of course, was very thinly coated with silver, and that impure. Still I was able to verify the truth of Daguerre's revelations. The first experiment crowned with any success was a view of the Unitarian Church from the window on the staircase from the third story of the New York City University. This, of course, was before the building of the New York Hotel. It was in September, 1839. The time, if I recollect, in which the plate was exposed to the action of light in the camera was about fifteen minutes. The instruments, chemicals, etc., were strictly in accordance with the directions in Daguerre's first book. "An English gentleman, whose name at present escapes me, obtained a copy of Daguerre's book about the same time with myself. He commenced experimenting also. But an American of the name of Walcott was very successful with a modification of Daguerre's apparatus, substituting a metallic reflector for the lens. Previous, however, to Walcott's experiments, or rather results, my friend and colleague, Professor John W. Draper, of the New York City University, was very successful in his investigations, and with him I was engaged for a time in attempting portraits.