Cleaning the Declaration of Independence

On the Declaration of Independence there is a greasy oil spot that is from Benjamin Franklin accidently spilling lamp oil onto it. imagine one of the founding fathers messing up one of the founding documents. museums have, over time used many methods to cleaing their art. since the specimens are so old they have to be used with the utmost care. the biggest problem with cleaing the art is that you need to find out what is actually on the page. after you find that out you can clean the blemish off with chemicals. to find out what the stain is, sciemtisist usually ahve to cut off a piece of the stain and do tests on it. with this new technology cleaning great works of art will be much less hard on the art itself.

This new method of testing is very complex, it is done by scientists using a portable nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. since the device is portable you do not need to cut off a pice of the stain to examine it. the old machine worked by analyzing how the nuclei in the substance's atoms respond to a magnetic feild and radio energy. the new more portable device doesn't give as detailed of an analysis as the old one, yet it still can determine whether or not the oil is saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated. the scientist can then use various chemicals according with the analysis to clean the paper.

This new technology is a great step to making the world's art and documents last longer so that later generations may enjoy them. the Declaration of Independence, for example is one of America's greatest treasures. yet, because it is amde of paper it cannot last forever. the only way to make it last longer is for scientists to keep on coming up with new ways of preserving these documents.