[In the 1850s, photography became hugely popular, and people who had gone in search of gold in California would send photographs to loved ones back home. Ambrotype of a young woman. (Photo by=CALIFORNIA GOLD MARKETING GROUP)]

In 1857, the SS Central America, also known as the "ship of gold", sank off the coast of the US state of South Carolina, along with some newfound riches from the California Gold Rush. It’s a hurricane that sealed the fate of 425 people returning to the US east coast, BBC reported.
 
They went down with an estimated 21 tons of gold coins and nuggets from prospectors who had struck it rich on the west coast, but some passengers were also carrying something of more personal value - photographs. Salvaged from the ship's wreckage in 2014 were daguerreotypes, the first successful commercial form of photography - a one-off picture held on a metal plate - and ambrotypes, a type of glass plate photography. The photos are only being published this year.
 
The shipwreck was first located in 1988, and there were missions to recover its sunken wealth over the subsequent years. The photos were recovered over a decade ago, but there was a "tortuous legal battle" over the gold found with the vessel on the ocean floor, said Bob Evans, the former chief scientist and historian of the SS Central America Project, which led the search and salvage mission for the wreck.
Mr. Evans has been researching the SS Central America since 1983, calling it "an interesting piece of lost United States history".