This issue exemplifies the challenge of preserving highly acidic newsprint in its original form. The brittle, folded and cracked paper could not be opened without damage. The German conservators smoothed the sheets, faced each with tissue, attaching it with a gelatin adhesive, and pressed the faced pages. They pulled each page apart into two separate sheets, and inserted an acid-free core paper between them. After treatment, they encapsulated the pages in polyester film.
Researchers can now read the original supplement if they handle it with care.
The newspaper is unremarkable except for a single issue, which commands more attention than all of its rivals put together, that of January 4, 1800. On page two of this four-page issue appears John Marshall's address on the death of George Washington. Conservators washed the single rag paper sheet, mended it, and placed it between two plexiglass sheets in order to permit safe viewing of all four pages of the open newspaper. Newspaper volumes after treatment A paper conservator washes the acidic sheets, prior to applying an agent to remove acid and leave an alkaline reserve. The Daily National Intelligencer served as the semiofficial newspaper of the U.S. government until Andrew Jackson's administration.