Building lloteriols Help Keep filonumentol Sculpture 'lmmortol'

(One of the mast Po\ular moaies nou showi.ng throughout the cowrtry is the Alfred Hitchcock production, "North by Northwest." Its climar is played oaer the famous rocb caruings described. below. Because so many persons have aiewed this erciting motion picture, it uill be in.teresting to learn in this article the Part that the building material.t industr5, plays in the sculpture's uPkeep.)

Four presidential giants, whose epochal careers spanned the first I25 years of our country's history, gaze solemnly and thoughtfully across the Black Hills of South Dakota from the heights of 5,675-foot Mount Rushmore. Nearly 1,000,000 tourists visit the monumental sculpture each year to gaze, in turn, upon the majestic frozen countenances of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, who labored diligently and unselfishly in building our democratic processes of government and the American way of life.

Here, memorialized forever in gleaming granite, are the gigantic heads liberated by the eminent sculptor, John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, from Rushmore's weathered peaks between 1927 and 1941. When death stayed the hand of the artist in March of the latter year, his son, Lincoln Borglum, spent what few funds remained in completing some minor details previously outlined by his father and in removing the heavy stagis, iron plini, cable car and other equipment in use during the carving.

Charles E. Humberger, superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, since 1951, points out that no work has been done on the heads since 1941 and that they are substantially as they were then. In bright sunlight, the sculpture is a glistening white because of its large granite crystals. In late afternoon or on cloudy days, it takes on the familiar grey granite color and large seams of pure qvartz are visible on the surface.

Barring a natural disaster, how long will the magnificent carvings endure? The exposed rock forming the heads now is under attack by weather processes and some geologists are of the opinion that between 5,000 and 500,000 years might elapse before wear begins to show on the faces. bearswitness...ofthe Nation...carvedhigh, Then breathe a prayer the wind and rain alone

As an experimental step in preserving Borglum's monumental work, this Spring an invisible water repellent coating was apptied to the top of the Washington head under supervision of Glenn T. Jones, who is in charge of maintenance, building utility and sculpture at the memorial.

The water repellent tested is Siliphane, a product of The Upson Company, Lockport, New York. Siliphane is a clear silicone formulation which provides an invisible protective coating for all exterior above grade masonry.

President James J. Upson reports that Siliphane keeps rvater out and prevents the accumulation of dirt, dust or soot because each rainfall completely washes off the surface which remains as clean and bright as when new.

Supt. Humberger has noted that no effects of erosion have been found on the heads and added that "the Siliphane treatment, if applied other than experimentally, would be in the hope of forestalling trouble many thousands of years from now."

Mr. Jones made the Siliphane application on the Washington head in cooperation with Henry O. Parry, IJpson's Pacific Coast division salesmanager. Each year Mr. Jones makes an annual inspection of the sculpture, scrambling over the heads on foot and swinging over the faces in a rope seat. Small hairline cracks in the rock are sealed with a mixture of granite dust and white lead. This keeps out water which over a period of years may enlarge the cracks througlr alternate freezing and thawing.

Sculptor Borglum once said: "I want, somewhere tt-l America . a few feet of stone that great things we accomplished as a as close to heaven as we can that these records will endure until shall wear them away."

On another occasion, Borglum commented that "a monument's dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated." lJsing methods he devised for.his Stone Mountain carvings near Atlanta, Georgia, Borglum sculptured monumental figures, indeed, to memorialize the Father of His Country. the author of the Declaration of Independence, the Greaf Emancipator and the Rough Rider whose administration witnessed the building of the Panama Canal and the extension of U.S. naval power.

The heads measure 6O feet from chin to forehead. whereas the human head on the great Sphinx in Egypt measures 30 feet from chin to forehead. The presidential greats look upon a vast section of land included in lefferson's Louisiana Purchase.

Since the heads are svmbolic of the develooment of America and the promulgation of our unalienable^rights to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," Gutzon Borglum himself once said: "We have not created a monument to Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln or Roosevelt, but to the meaning of those eleven words as maintained in our government by those four great leaders. Those words-man has a right to be free and to be happy-."

New A. O. Smith Elecfric Motor Boon to Wood Working lndustry

A revolutionary design Concept in single-phase electric motors featuring complete sealed protection for the starting switch-cause of over 34/o of all single-phase motor failures in the wood working industrieshas been announced by the Electric Motor division of A. O. Smith Corporation. The switch, capacitor, thermostat, actuator and terminal board have been totally encased. This makes them impervious to sawdust, wood "fines," and the natural shop dirt and dust conditions which, heretofore, have faulted the switch mechanism, major cause of single-phase motor failures.

Rolph €rcven R,etires

Andrew R. ("Ralph") Craven, former assistant vicepresident of Certain-teed Products Corporation, has retired from Bestwall Certain-teed Sales Corporation, Ardmore, Pa. In 7922 Craven joined Certain-teed as a salesman in Chicago. After serving for a time as Pacific Coast sales manager, Craven was made roofing general sales manager in New York.

(Tell them Aou sau it in The California Lumber Merchant)