Daguerreotype showing Joseph Avery stranded on rocks in the Niagara River, July 1853. Photographed by daguerreotypist Platt D. Babbitt (1822-1879). Three men boating in the Niagara River were overwhelmed by the river's strong current, lost control of their boat, and crashed into a rock. The current carried two men immediately over the Falls to their deaths. This daguerreotype shows the third man, stranded on a log which had jammed between two rocks. He weathered the current for eighteen hours before succumbing to the river. The image is an early example of a news photograph.