Technically, it wasn't completed. Construction was stopped because of lack of funding.
The final version was supposed to look like this model:
Posted on 11/02/2014 8:06:38 PM PST by SunkenCiv
An imaging project is designed to help save the iconic Mount Rushmore from the effects of weather, physical erosion and more...
I always have been fascinated by the Mount Rushmore National Memorial (Keystone, S.D.); ever since noted New York Times Magazine photographer Sam Falk gave me an image he took of Gutzon Borglum’s sculpture. When Falk presented me with his photograph in the 1960s, little did anyone realize that the effects of erosion—although not yet readily apparent—already had taken hold.
Carving of the monument actually began in 1927 and finally was completed in 1941. Although jurisdiction over Mount Rushmore was ceded to the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service in 1933, nearly 50 years passed before general acknowledgment of the necessity for preservative action.
Weathering breaks down rock. While granite is fairly resistant, outcroppings constantly are subjected to the elements; causing gradual chemical and physical changes. Carbon dioxide and oxygen from runoff attrite substance. Physical erosion occurs when water, lodged in cracks, turns to ice and expands. Annual freeze/thaw cycles additionally force apart fractured edges. Tree roots produce a similar result which, ultimately, causes rock to disintegrate into clay and sand.
To safeguard the statues, experts would need to predict which of the granite blocks were most prone to shifting. In 1989, Respec Engineering, Inc. (Rapid City, S.D.) conducted a high-tech checkup that included photogrammetry and three-dimensional AutoCAD (AutoDesk, Inc., San Rafael, Calif.) modeling. Using precision cameras mounted aboard fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, the survey comprised some 300 photographs. From those images, a computer created 3D projections of the monument’s internal fracture system. It was part of a sprucing up for the Memorial’s impending 50th anniversary.
(Excerpt) Read more at advancedimagingpro.com ...
I hope they have more luck at preserving it than they had at the Old Man of the Mountain in NH.
Technically, it wasn't completed. Construction was stopped because of lack of funding.
The final version was supposed to look like this model:
That movie is my favorite Hitchcock. Just as good today as when it was made. Love this line: “That’s funny, that plane’s dustin’ crops where there ain’t no crops.”
I didn’t know about the hall of records. Interesting.
Somewhere I have a docu on it — the sculptor first pitched the idea of the Confed monument at Stone Mountain, joined the Klan, the whole works; he got pissed off about something, quit the Klan, and conceived the Rushmore project. He wanted a museum about the US in that Hall of Records, and including a copy of the Declaration of the Independence, or the Constitution, or both, I forget. Fascinating guy. One of his rock cutters branched out and started that unfinished Crazy Horse monument.
Thanks ES.
Hitch?
:’) I wonder if he worked barefoot?
I wonder if the producers of the National Treasure sequel were aware of that when they decided to place their treasure there.
I’m not sure they were aware of anything but the pager number for their drug dealer when they wrote that sorry-assed script.
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