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� AMAZIG ANSWERS TO CURIOUS QUESTIONS ------------------

How was Mount

Rushmore made?

The explosive methods used to ccuve these stony-faced presidents into the granite

he ultimate symbol of American this was during America's Great Depression, a So that's the main structural sculpting taken
democracy, the Mount Rushmore time when a lot of people were just thankful to care of, now for the less explosive techniques.
T National Memorial has presided over the have jobs. Men were lowered down in front of the 500-foot
Black Hills of South Dakota since its completion A massive 90 per cent of the rock removed from rock face in bosun's chairs, using thick steel
in 1941. The sculpture, depicting 6o-foot effigies the mountain was blown away using dynamite. cable. At the top of the mountain, men in winch
of presidents George Washington, Thomas The powdermen in charge of the explosives set houses controlled and lowered the cables by
Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham different-sized charges in specific locations in hand. If they winched too quickly, the workers
Lincoln, was designed by American sculptor order to remove exact amounts of rock. in the bosun's chairs would be injured, and so
Gutzon Borglum, who sadly passed away before call boys were employed to sit on the mountain
the memorial was actually finished. A massive 90 per edge and shout instructions to the winch men.
On a happier note, of the 400 workers To sculpt the last six inches of stone, drillers
involved in carving these iconic figureheads, cent of the rock removed and carving assistants used jackhammers and a
none died during the mammoth undertaking ­ from the mountain technique called honeycombing, whereby they
unusual for any construction of the time, let bored holes very close together. This weakened
alone one involving dynamite and at such was blown away the hard granite so that it could be finished off
dangerous heights. In fact these workers even by hand and then the presidents' faces were
had to climb a mountain to get to work, but then using dynamite smoothed off using 'bumping' tools. 0

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