Mount Rushmore, Carved In Stone

Mount Rushmore; Carved In Stone From deep within the earth’s crust, An orogeny pushes The batholith upwards To become ‘The Shrine of Democracy,’ Of weathered presidential faces Chiseled in rock in South Dakota; Representing 150 years of history (From birth of a nation To entry into the 20th century) In carved images: Of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. An army of men labored, fourteen years in the making. Hanging from scaffolds and bosuns chairs: Using dynamite, jackhammers, and chisels, And air hammer brushes to smooth the edges, Carved the sculptor Borglum’s masterpiece (Plasticized model into a reality) Sixty feet high out of the granite outcrop. Mount Rushmore upholds patriotic symbolism, In a constitution written to ensure existence: Of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. *** Notes: 1) Orogeny: An 'orogeny' is a mountain creation due to plate tectonics. 2) Batholith (bathos-depth, lithos-rock): A 'batholith' is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock formed by the cooling of lava or magma deep in the earth’s crust. Through the process of orogeny (continental uplift) and erosion, it can become exposed at the earth’s surface via outcrops. 3) Shrine of Democracy: ‘The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.’ (Gutzon Borglum) 4) George Washington: 1st President (1732–1799): Birth of the U.S.A.. Thomas Jefferson: 3rd President (1743–1826): Expansion of the U.S.A. with the Louisiana purchase. Theodore Roosevelt: 26th President (1858–1919): Development of the U.S.A.. Abraham Lincoln: 16th President (1809–1865): Preserver of the Union. 5) Mount Rushmore: 'Mount Rushmore' is located in the Black Hills, Keystone, South Dakota. Construction of the monument took place from 1927 to 1941, and is the work of the sculptor Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941). Mount Rushmore is named after Charles E. Rushmore, a New York City attorney who was sent out to this area to check legal titles on properties for a mining company. The Lakota called it Thunkášila Šákpe, or Six Grandfathers ( before it was renamed). 6) Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness: 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness is a phrase written into the United States Declaration of Independence (1776); “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…