Cool Science

Last night there was a great documentary on the recent conservation/preservation project for the Declaration of Independence. I was stuck on the couch in a feverish, frozen stupor, so I watched. First of all, NIST has the most amazing milling machines. Talk about your dream machine shop. The new encasements that they machined for the Declaration were breath-taking marvels in titanium.

Second, the show followed some of the work of the conservators. They extracted the Declaration from it's old casing and began examining it - with their hands. And no masks either. They were in a top-secret, state of the art, dust-free, ultra-controlled environment room and they were pawing all over the Declaration. I was waiting for a sneeze as they hovered inches above it without masks - would have been great comic timing - never saw it but it could have happened... This carelessness didn't just show up once or twice, but in numerous scenes that appeared to span the entire restoration/conservation work.

The BEST part is when the conservators are standing around discussing the presence of a well known hand print on the Declaration. One of them is touching it and remarks something like (this is a paraphrase) "Nobody knows how it got there." It doesn't take a scientist to answer this one : BECAUSE SOMEBODY PUT THEIR HAND ON IT!

Here's my prediction. The oils and acids in the skin of today's conservators will take time to have their impact on the parchment (animal skin). But in time they'll lead to discolorations or changes in the structure of the parchment. And 50 years from now a fresh batch of conservators will be wondering where all the little smudges came from on the Declaration.