One day in 1863 Hyatt, finding his fingers
were getting raw, went to the cupboard where was kept the "liquid
cuticle" used by the printers. But when he got there he found it was
bare, for the vial had tipped over--you know how easily they tip
over--and the collodion had run out and solidified on the shelf.
Possibly Hyatt was annoyed, but if so he did not waste time raging
around the office to find out who tipped over that bottle. Instead he
pulled off from the wood a bit of the dried film as big as his thumb
nail and examined it with that "'satiable curtiosity," as Kipling calls
it, which is characteristic of the born inventor. He found it tough and
elastic and it occurred to him that it might be worth $10,000. It turned
out to be worth many times that.
Collodion, as I have explained in previous chapters, is a solution in
ether and alcohol of guncotton (otherwise known as pyroxylin or
nitrocellulose), which is made by the action of nitric acid on cotton.
Hyatt tried mixing the collodion with ivory powder, also using it to
cover balls of the necessary weight and solidity, but they did not work
very well and besides were explosive.
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