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.