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Document number: 8621
Date: 01 Dec 1862
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: BOSSARD Fr A
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 8th February 2010

[on notepaper blindstamped "Bath"]

Mandach Burgg Aargau Switzerland
Dec 1st 1862.

Hon. and dear Sir

Last spring a year ago when I was on my voyage from the United States to Switzerland, I desired while traveling through England to make your acquaintance, in order to converse with you about some new items of Experiments which I made upon the subject of Photographic Chemistry. My experiments have mostly been on vegetable Alkaloids, combining them with the metalloids, thus attempting to render them useful to Photography, especially the Iodides and the Bromides upon which subject I have given some of my writings to the American Journals. I shall accompany this letter with 2 copies of a Journal containing some of my writings,<1> some others have appeared on the 15th February 1862 e.t.z. I shall however have to beg you to excuse the mistakes of the Editor or printer. I have had some striking results, obtaining many colors at the same time on one piece of paper, using my own compounded and new sorts of chemicals, which I found described in no works whatever. Perhaps you have also been experimenting on the manufacture and uses of Iodides and Bromides of vegetable Alkaloids, if so it would give me great pleasure and satisfaction to compare your results with mine, provided you feel disposed to do so. Perhaps you could also give me the directions of a good standing English Photographic Society, to which I could send once a while some of my experiments written out.

I see a great many very erroneous publications in the American Journal, where Photographers write articles upon Photographic Chemistry totaly [sic] incompatible either with Chemistry or even with Photography.

I have, being requested by a number of Photographers, now commenced writing an Encyclopedia of Photographic Chemistry.<2>

I should be glad to receive some new items of you or of any other gentleman who might feel disposed to do so; I shall of course give Credit for such news.

I am not acquainted with any Photographer in Switzerland who combines theory with practice, they are either most all practical men and know nothing of theory, or they cannot apply their theory to practice, in fact most everybody treats Photography as a trade alone and not as a science. Such is the case why I search in England for correspondence, for in that country I am sure to find it, and even better than in America, where I have been almost ten years, traveling, giving instructions to all kinds of Photographers correcting their mistakes and troubles, and at the same time analizing [sic] minerals e.t.z.

Such traveling gave me the opportunity to make a very fine collection of shells, of which I shall send you a Catalogue, comprising all the bivalves found in the Ohio river and its Northern tributaries. <3> I have also a fine collection of Alpine plants petrefactions and American minerals.

I have been spending a great deal of money for the benefit of Photography. I know by your writings that you have done the same.

In the United States I have lost considerable money on account of the present war, such is the case why I am not able to proceed in the midst of several very important discoveries.

All what I have written and write yet upon, I previously subject to trial in ordre [sic] to satisfy myself about its correctness.

The index to the Iodides and Bromides in my work will be I think the greatest of any other book.

Now I am about to make known to the public several new and valuable discoveries, which will bring me quite a sum of money, but in ordre [sic] to do it I am obliged to work practically at Photography because of my heavy loss in America.

I have done so this past Summer, and I can state that my work has given great satisfaction. I desire since there is no good Photographer in Basel to establish myself there, now dear Sir you know very well that it requires some means, and those necessary means I have not. I know Sir that the Lord has greatly blessed you with means, thus taking my refuge to you, trusting that the Lord might give you satisfactory evidence, that my intention is a true cause, and that there is not the slightest danger of abusing your kindness.

Sir! there is no nation that ever has done more good to the world then [sic] the English. Our Episcopal College, Kenyon College in Gambier America, with all its adjunct buildings viz. Ross Chapel Millnor Hall and Bexley Hall are the fruit of English benevolence Now Sir I am in want of at the very least one thousand pounds. Such amount of money together with mine and that which my father is about to give me will set me upon such footing, that I am able to establish myself, do my work and proceed with my new discoveries.

I am in haste to establish myself, because some one els [sic] might take the chance.

Now Sir I know it is an easy matter for you to help me, I am willing to do what I can and shall with great pleasure give you all the above named collection of Shells e.t.z. shall by and by hand you back the money, or all just according to your owne [sic] wishes. How many men have, by assistance of others made in that way their fortune.

I am about certain, that you, an Englishman could not see an other Photogr. Chemist bury his talents on account of the want of means. I am at present staying with my father a minister of the gospel, a gentleman who has now been preaching more than 40 years in the reformed churches of Switzerland and residing now and for the last twenty years in Mandach Canton Aargau Switzerland. I myself belong to the protestant Episcopal church. By birth I am Suisse, American by adoption, and wished rather I was a citizen of England which is the only country to enjoy true freedome al lthough a kingdom.

Thus Dear Sir you see the very head and front of this letter, may it proove [sic] accessable [sic] in your sight and may the Lord give you evidence of its honest contents and demands.

I am dear Sir very respectfully your most obedient Servant
Fr A Bossard


Notes:

1. The copies were not found with the letter. Bossard operated a 'Photographic Chemist' shop in Mansfield, Ohio in 1858. Writing from Paris on 16 September 1861 as their 'Paris Correspondent,' Bossard published "The Iodides. - Their Chemistry applied to Photography," Humphrey's Journal, v. 13 no. 11, 1 October 1861, pp. 163-163 and v. 13 no. 12, 15 October 1861, pp. 177-181. Pointing out the article, the Editor said, "many of our subscribers at the West are well acquainted with the above-named gentleman, who is widely known as a skillful practical photographer, and one who has givne to many of our readers valuable instructions in the Heliographic art," indicating that this was the first of a series of promised articles (p. 176). In v. 13 no. 16, 15 December 1861, the editor said "it is high time we heard again from our French correspondent. His numerous friends out West are eager for more of his scientific articles, which we notice were extensively copied into the European Journals" (p. 256). In v. 12 no. 19, 1 February 1862, the editor referred to "Prof. F. A. Bossard...(who is our Swiss correspondent)" saying "we beg leave to suggest to our Correspondent that he will make no further use of the chemical symbols in his articles, but give us the plain English instead, and thus reach the comprehension of all our readers, many of whom are practical, and not scientific men" (p. 304). The editor must have refused this article, but did publish an article of Bossard's that had nothing to do with chemistry: "The New Solar Camera Reflector," v. 13 no. 20, 15 February 1862, pp. 305-307.

2. This work appears not to have been published.

3. Bossard, Catalogue of the Unios, Alasmodontes, and Anodontas of the Ohio River and its Northern Tributaries (Gambier, Ohio: Theological Seminary Press, 1854). If he actually sent a copy to WHFT, it has yet to be spotted on the shelves of Lacock Abbey.