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[[marginal entry written vertically in red]] Hyatt [[/marginal entry]]
size, inclined to elderly stoutness, rather intelligent looking, shows it more when he gets in conversation.  Some signs of short breath.  interposes his narratives with once in awhile a pithy remark and a full hearty laugh.  I asked him to tell me the story of celluloid.  Told me he was a painter by trade and his father a blacksmith and the latter a fervent methodist so much so that he gave him as second name "Wesley". Had an older brother who is dead now and attended more specially to business matters.  Has still a younger brother living.  Hyatt's methodism seems to have changed very much to the most liberal philosophical beliefs as described
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below.  Invented celluloid when he was about 25 years old.  I believe he was then in Albany.  Possessed among many other materials a bottle of surgical collodion, which happened to have spilled its contents and the latter had hardened to a horny mass.  Some billiard ball makers had offered a prize of $10,000 for a suitable substitute for ivory.  Hyatt thought that [[strikethrough]] materials [[/strikethrough]] evaporated collodion might do.  Soon found out his mistake and saw that not only evaporation was slow but solvent was expensive and bulky amount of solution shrank up to very little.  He then tried to use core of other materials and shell of evaporated collodion. 
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