This claim, which often circulates on the internet, is actually a myth. There is no historical or scientific record of a discovery that shocked the world in a photograph from the 1820s.

The main reason is that photography, as we know it, was an incredibly rudimentary and slow process at the time.

The Truth About Photography in the 1820s
The process of photographing the world was a “discovery” in itself that shocked the world, but it took years to evolve:

The First Photograph: The first known permanent photograph, “View from the Window at Le Gras,” was taken by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce around 1826-1827.
Rudimentary Process: This image was the result of an eight-hour exposure, and the process (called heliography) produced extremely blurry and low-quality images. It was a scientific achievement, not a means of capturing hidden details.

Later Advances: Photography did not become widely available and did not begin producing detailed images until Louis Daguerre’s development of the daguerreotype in 1839.
Therefore, the technology simply did not exist in the 1820s to capture an image with the clarity necessary for a “discovery” of the magnitude suggested. The idea of an astonishing find in a photo from that era is part of a viral story or a hoax, not a verified historical fact.