Part 2
The work of fitting the figures into the cracked granite upthrust called Mt. Rushmore has been a constant struggle between composition and finding solid stone for each of the four heads.
In the first design Jefferson was placed at the right of Washington and Lincoln on his left, and Theodore Roosevelt occupied the position now occupied by Lincoln. However serious flaws developed in the stone on this side of Washington; and it therefore became necessary to change our design and place Jefferson to Washington’s left. This made it necessary to place Theodore Roosevelt between Jefferson and Lincoln, and the stone had to be removed to a depth of approximately 120 feet from the original surface to get back far enough for the Roosevelt face. The heads were finally relegated to their approximate position (being moved several times as new conditions of the stone developed), that is they were tilted or dropped or made to look more to the right or left as the case might have been, to meet the composition or avoid flaws in the stone. This movement being made simply by moving the respective heads on the model and cutting the stone accordingly. It was not possible to fit the heads so that they would be entirely free from fissures, but it was possible to place them so that none of these fissures would be unsupported from below and that removes the danger of some vital part dropping off. As each head was started its center was located, and at this center point on the top of the head a plate was located. This was graduated in degrees 0 to 360 degrees, and at its center a horizontal arm was located that traversed this horizontal are. This arm was about 30 feet long, in effect a giant protractor laid on top of the head. The arm was graduated in feet and inches so that at any point we could drop a plumb bob from this arm, and by measuring the vertical distance on this plumb line determine exactly the amount of stone to be removed. After determining this master center point on the mountain, we set a smaller arc and arm on our model in the same relative position. With this small device we would make all our measurements on our model and then enlarge them twelve times and transfer them to the large measuring device on the mountain. Thru this system every face had a measurement made every six inches both vertically and horizontally. These measurements were then painted on the stone and it was thru this means that men totally unfamiliar with sculptural form were able to do this undertaking. In fact all the men employed on the work were local men trained by the sculptor.
Pneumatic drills are used for drilling and the compressed air is provided by large compressors located on the ground and driven by electricity. The air is forced or conveyed to the top of the mountain by a 3″ pipe and then by the use of smaller pipes and rubber hoses is conveyed to the drills.
Over 400,000 tons of granite have been removed from the mountain in carving the figures, at a total expense of slightly more than $900,000. This includes all building, stairways and machinery.
The men are let down over the face of the stone in leather swings similar to bos’n chairs used on ships. These swings are fastened on to ⅜″ steel cables which are in turn fastened on to winches located on the top of the heads. These winches are operated by hand. There are about seven winches on the top of each head. The men are lowered to their place of work by these winches, taking with them their jackhammers or pneumatic tools and other necessary equipment. One man is located in a position where he can see all the men at work, and is “The Callboy,” and has a microphone with a loud speaker at each of the winches and when any of the men working in the swings wants to be raised or lowered they signal this call-boy and he relays the message thru the loud speakers to the winchman. He also keeps the workmen supplied with new drills as they need them, by relaying their requests to the steelman who carries the steel to the men in the swings as it is needed. This steel is used over and over again; as it is dulled it is taken to the blacksmith shop on the ground via the cable car, heated, sharpened, re-heated and tempered and sent back to the mountain again. About 400 of these drills are dulled each day. They drill on an average about four feet before being sharpened. In some places the stone is so hard they will only last or drill about six inches and in other places they will last seven or eight feet before being re-sharpened.
The problem of finance has always been acute in connection with the work of the Rushmore Memorial. The economic hardships of the country made it increasingly difficult to match the Federal appropriation, without which the carving could not go on. The sculptor made repeated trips through the state and beyond its borders to arouse interest in the undertaking. He succeeded in raising some money by publishing a small book about Rushmore. There were never enough funds for as much power or as many men as he would have liked to use. There were long months when the work was stopped altogether. Finally the government took over the whole burden of financing and the work continued regularly, after 1938, being halted only by weather conditions. The sculptor was at last able to employ one or two trained stone carvers to do the finer work of finishing.
The Washington head was unveiled in 1930, with Mr. Cullinan, first chairman of the Rushmore Commission presiding. President Franklin D. Roosevelt came for the unveiling of the Jefferson head in 1936. His unfailing interest and support have insured the finishing of the Memorial. At the unveiling of the face of Abraham Lincoln in 1937, a nation wide radio hookup carried the speeches to all parts of the country and again in 1939, when Governor Bushfield of South Dakota conducted ceremonies celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the State of South Dakota at Mount Rushmore, the radio carried the speeches and music all over the United States. The upper part of the face of Theodore Roosevelt was uncovered at that time.
Mr. Borglum was always scrupulously careful to protect his men from harm and it was his boast that in all his years of hazardous mountain carving no worker was seriously injured. He took no care of himself, however, and physicians said that undoubtedly the strenuous work of carving at that altitude weakened his heart and in March, 1941, it stopped beating. The carving was practically finished; there remained only the finishing of the hands and hair of the four figures and the Rushmore National Memorial Commission entrusted that work to the sculptor’s son, Lincoln Borglum, who had been with his father from the beginning of the work.
The faces of the four presidents, as carved on Mount Rushmore, are approximately 60 feet from chin to forehead; if completed from head to foot the figures would be 465 feet high. The entire head of the sphinx in Egypt is not quite as long as Washington’s nose. The entire cost of the Memorial, including all expenses of carving, buildings and salaries, is $900,000. This is at the rate of less than two dollars for every ton of stone removed, which is a cost incredibly low considering the hardness of the granite and that every piece must be removed in such a way as not to injure the surface behind. On this investment the Federal Government has received from tourists from the one cent gas tax on the increased sale of gas during the years since the work started over two million dollars and the income to South Dakota is over twenty million dollars annually.
THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Millions of Americans and liberty-loving people from all over the world have come to the Black Hills of South Dakota to look upon Gutzon Borglum’s _Shrine of Democracy_.
The exact number of visitors to the great granite carvings is not known but each travel season the pilgrimage increases in size.
During the period of construction from 1927 to 1941, when work was under supervision of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission, no accurate records of visitors were kept. Hundreds came each day, however, to keep a fascinated watch over the emergence of the likenesses of the four great presidents from the great stone uplift.
Consecration ceremonies attended by President Coolidge and the unveilings of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln were attended by thousands of people. Distinguished guests participating in these ceremonies included the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Then in 1939, the Memorial was placed under the supervision of the National Park Service of the Department of Interior. World War II intervened, but in the peace years since the transfer, the flow of visitors has been measured at close to a half million persons each travel season, 419,817 being reported for the 1947 travel year.
Among the nine great memorials in the National Park Service system, Mount Rushmore, by 1947, had risen from seventh to fourth place in attendance. So far as these memorials are concerned, those reporting larger visitations were the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Washington Monument, all in the District of Columbia.
As with other national parks, monuments, and memorials, Mount Rushmore was designated for inclusion in the National Park system because it had become a most inspiring site of historic significance.
Its present administration is designed to promote and regulate the use of the memorial area to conserve the scenery and the natural and historical objects and to provide for the enjoyment of it in such a manner as to leave it unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.
A total of nearly 1,800 acres of the Federal Game Sanctuary in the Harney National Forest now comprises the memorial area. It is under the administration of Superintendent Harry J. Liek with headquarters at Wind Cave National Park. The memorial is directly under Acting Custodian J. Estes Suter.
A brief description follows for Wind Cave National Park and the three national monuments—the Badlands, Jewel Cave, and Devils Tower—that are embraced in the Black Hills and Badlands area of southwestern South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming.
WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK
Wind Cave is the most widely known of the many limestone caverns found near the margin of the Black Hills. Discovered in 1881, it was created a national park in 1903. The strong currents of wind that blow alternately in and out of the mouth of the cave suggested its name.
Boundaries of the park were extended twice and now embrace a total of 28,000 acres of federally-owned land, supporting a large buffalo herd in its natural habitat and other wildlife, such as elk, antelope, and deer.
Chief feature of the park is the exceptional limestone cavern, noted for its unique boxwork rarely found in other sections of the world. Other crystalline formations in various color shadings line a series of subterranean passages, known to be at least 10 miles in extent.
BADLANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
In sharp contrast to the verdant Black Hills country, the White River Badlands, a barren, treeless region, lies about 50 miles east of the western foothills.
Here nature has beautified the earth with all shades of buff, cream, pale green, gold, and rose. Fantastically carved erosion forms rise above the valleys, some of them 150 to 300 feet high.
The constantly shifting color and the weird formations make this a region of strong imaginative appeal.
JEWEL CAVE NATIONAL MONUMENT
A unique coating of dogtooth calcite crystals which sparkle like jewels in the light distinguish Jewel Cave from other crystal caverns in the Black Hills and provided its name.
One of the finest stands of virgin ponderosa pine remaining in the Black Hills is found within the monument which was established in 1908. It was originally part of the present Harney National Forest but was transferred to the National Park Service, by Executive Order, in 1934.
DEVILS TOWER NATIONAL MONUMENT
Another unusual natural phenomenon of the Black Hills country is the Devils Tower across the South Dakota state line in Wyoming. This is a great column of igneous rock towering 1,280 feet above the Belle Fourche river, whose course is near the base. Devils Tower has the distinction of being the first national monument created under the Antiquities Act of 1906. It was established by proclamation of September 24 of that year, by President Theodore Roosevelt.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MOUNT RUSHMORE _By the late_ JOSEPH P. CONNOLLY _President, South Dakota School of Mines_
At the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon is reported to have exhorted his men by saying, “Soldiers, from these pyramids forty centuries look down upon you.” From the standpoint of human history four thousand years represent great antiquity indeed. But as one gazes upon the rugged slopes of Mount Rushmore, he is face to face with antiquity beside which the age of the Egyptian pyramids seems but a moment.
How old is the granite of Rushmore? We have a yardstick by which we can measure that quite accurately. Not far from the mountain, in a subsidiary mass of granite, there was found a few years ago a small piece of coal-black, lustrous mineral known as pitchblende or uraninite, of which the chief constituent is the heaviest known element, uranium. We know that uranium continually undergoes atomic disintegration, changing at a slow, but uniform and measurable rate into lighter elements. The end product of this change is the metal lead. If we submit the specimen of pitchblende to chemical analysis, determine how much lead it contains, how much uranium is still left, it is a comparatively simple calculation to determine from the known rate of change, the number of years that have elapsed since the pitchblende came into existence. That experiment has been performed and the result is one billion four hundred and sixty-five million (1,465,000,000) years. Bear in mind that this enormous figure represents the time that has elapsed since the molten rock came to rest at some depth under the surface of the earth, and cooled sufficiently to crystallize into granite. It represents the age of the solid granite.
But, although the granite of which the mountain is composed dates back to a period almost inconceivably remote, Mount Rushmore itself is much younger. We know that all of the granite mountains of the southern Black Hills were carved out of the rocks by the process of erosion. Field evidence indicates that fairly early in the Tertiary period, approximately thirty million years ago, erosion had carved out the topography of the Black Hills into much the same stage as we see it today. Perhaps Mount Rushmore was not fully born in that period; its form may not yet have been completely sculptured under the chisel of time, but we know that its age must be measured in millions of years and not in centuries.
Mount Rushmore is a child of weathering and erosion. They brought the mountain into being and gave it form. But those relentless parents will not be content to leave their child as they fashioned it. They will continue their work of disintegration on the surface of the rock and along the cracks, until eventually they will completely destroy the mountain they formed, and long before the mountain will have been destroyed, the magnificent carvings of man will disappear. “How long,” we anxiously ask, “will the carvings endure?” Two processes will tend eventually to destroy the memorial, chemical weathering and physical disintegration.
Chemical weathering will take place very slowly, so slowly that if it were the only destructive process we had to consider, we could with some confidence say that the memorial would endure for hundreds of thousands of years. And the progress of chemical weathering will probably be impeded by the sculpturing of the memorial, for on the figures the rock will be smoother, water will drain off more rapidly instead of penetrating, lichens and other vegetation will not have as secure a foothold as on the natural face of the rock, and thus will not contribute to so great an extent their destructive acids to such waters as do penetrate.
Physical disintegration is somewhat more to be feared. This operates in two ways, by exfoliation due to changes in temperature, and by frost action. Differential stresses set up by unequal expansion and contraction, owing to the poor heat conductivity of granite, tend to spall off or _exfoliate_ the surface layers of rock.
When water gets into the cracks and pores of the rocks and freezes, it exerts an enormous pressure, a pressure that will spall off flakes and blocks of rock. The artist and his associates, fully aware of this hazard, have guarded against it. All cracks and fissures have been carefully avoided in the sculpturing so far as is possible. Such as have been impossible to avoid are being sealed to prevent the ingress of water, thus inhibiting to a very large extent both frost action and chemical weathering.
We have traced in part the geological history of the Mount Rushmore region, hoping that by learning something of its past we may predict something of its future. We see the hazards to which the memorial is exposed. We must frankly recognize them and guard against them so far as possible, as it would be folly to ignore them. If the science of geology can do no more in a practical way for mankind than to point out dangers and sound warnings, it does a worth while service. “How long will the memorial last?” Geology cannot answer specifically. An eminent geologist has already given as definite an answer as it is possible to give, and I can do no better than to close by quoting from the address given by the late Dr. C. C. O’Harra at the unveiling of the head of Washington.
“How long will Mount Rushmore last? Many millions of years. The number nobody knows. How long will endure this monumental, sculptured figure of the Father of our Country which today we unveil? One hundred years? Yes. One thousand years? Yes. A hundred thousand years? In all likelihood, yes. A half million years? Possibly so, nobody knows. The time at any rate will be long, far longer than we can readily comprehend. And this doubtless will abundantly suffice.”
THE HALL OF RECORDS AND GREAT STAIRWAY _By_ LINCOLN BORGLUM
The Hall of Records and Stairway have been part of the Memorial plan from the beginning and are provided for in the so-called “Rushmore Bill” of 1938. A good start has been made in the carving of the Hall, which already has been excavated to the extent of seventy feet. Great care has to be exercised in the use of dynamite in carving this hall, as in carving the faces on the mountain, not to injure the stone which is to remain. Careless explosions of large amounts of powder might crumble the walls.
The Hall is located about two thirds of the way up to the mountain: the entrance to it is in a small gorge or canyon, cut by the ice aeons ago, to the right of the carved faces as one looks at them from below. The Hall is on the opposite side of the gorge from the heads and is not under them. The following is quoted from Mr. Borglum’s plan.
“The façade to the Hall’s entrance is the mountain wall 140 feet high; supporting pylons, cut into the mountain, flank the entrance. The entrance door itself is 12 feet wide and 20 feet high; the walls are plain, dressed granite and of a fine color. I want to finish the inner entrance wall in mosaic of blue and gold lapis. The depth to the door entrance from the outer façade is 20 feet. The door, swung on a six inch offset of the wall, will be of bronze and glass. Small, carefully modeled bronze figures of historic importance from Columbus and Raleigh to the present day will ornament the doors or be modeled into the supporting frame. The walls of the entrance will carry in gilded bronze immediately within the entrance ancient Indian symbols; British, French, Spanish and American seals.
“The floor of the Hall will be 100 by 80 by 32 feet to an arched ceiling. At the height of fifteen feet an historic frieze, four feet wide, will encircle the entire room. Recesses will be cut into these walls to be filled with bronze and glass cabinets, which will hold the records stamped on aluminum sheets, rolled separately and placed in tubes. Busts of our leaders in all human activities will occupy the recesses between the cabinets. The original thought of a hall of human records I developed at Stone Mountain in Georgia and my drawings and full plans are extant; that was never completed.
“The records of electricity, beginning with Franklin, which has given us light, heat, music, the radio, the telegraph, the telephone and controls in power the extent of which we can hardly imagine, must be here, together with the records of literature, the records of travel, immigration, religious development and also the record of perhaps the largest contribution that we have made to humanity, which has been free controlled peace, a government of the people, by and for the people. Struggle as we will that great contribution is today the cause for the real unrest of Europe. Despotism, tyranny of every form is fighting us wherever it can, to take away from humanity the power freedom gives it—the power that freedom has given America.
“The Hall will be reached by a monumental flight of steps varying from 15 to 20 feet in width, which will ascend the mountain in front, a little to one side of the sculpture, rising from a great granite disk or platform in the canyon below, which may be used as a rostrum from which speakers may address the public occupying the amphitheater facing the great group.