The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-07-04
USES
POWER DRILL
At WORK
BorgIum Nosds Giant Machin-
cry to Cut Lee Memorial
on Mountain.
BY LARRY SHIFTS,
international News Service.

=
ATLANTA, Ga, July Across
the sheer granite face Of Stone
Mountain, within q few months.
will march the heroic figure OF the
Southern Confederacy, in a memo
rial as splendid in its conception
and execution and as aldacious
in Its proportions as any raised BY
the ,Egyptian Pharaohs.
These are the heroes of the Con-
federacy, carved into the stubborn
face of the ganite knob which rises
perpendicularly a thousand feet
from the Georgia plain, twenty miles
north Of Atlanta, At their head
will ride Gen. Robert e. Lee, q
mounted figure two hundred feet
high, whose horses hoofs will
spurn the craven battle field 400
feet above the mountains base.
600 Feet Above Plain.
Gutzon Borgium. noted American
sculptor, has designed the me-
mortal and will supervise its COM
pletion. The machinery with which
he and his aides will work is as
colossal as the memorial itself.
Seated on a tiny platform 600
ACCL DOOHO SAtS PAcItAAI ttAO SO0APSOb
will direct a gigantic pantograph,
an adaptation of the same little in
strun1ent- Of cross pivoted levers
found in toy shops or on drafting
tables. In use, a point traces the
original design. and the design
many times enlarged, is reproduced
by a marker at the end of the
furthest lever.
The long lever of the Confederate
memorial pantograph measures 233
feet, several feet higher than the
average seventeen-story building.
Along the face of the rock precipice
the lever will have working
radius of 200 feet.
The epic picture which Borglum
plans to carve on the great mono
lith Of granite lends itself tremen.
dously to the Imagination. The
work itself forms a departure al
most revolutionary in the arts of
sculpture and engineering. Prob
lens must be met and solved that
never before have been encountered.
Huge Derrick Placed.
A gigantic derrick will be erected
near the top Of the precipice for
raising equipment from below and
fixing the working super-structure
to the mountains face. Projecting
a hundred feet from the abrupt
rocky face, somewhat above where
the highest carving of the memoir
al will be made, steel trusses will
jut out, anchored on the precipice
at right angles to it. and supported
by series of cables running to
anchorages high @on the granite
knob, ,.-.. ~
On top of these trusses a track
will carry travelling crane for
raising and lowering workers and
tools and removing loose rock from
the mountain. The hewn rock will
be lowered and saved for construct
ing the large ampitheater which is
part of the memorial plan.
Along the bottom of the trusses
another track will carry an inverted
steel tower, hanging downward for
10 feet. This is the carrying arm
of the huge pantograph.
Uses Pneumatic Drill.
The sculptor will work from a
self-leveling platform which rides
an upper pivot of the pantograph
600 feet from the ground on the
side toward the face of the cliff.
Electric control devices operated
from the platform govern its move
ment. 1t may be swung away from
the face. of the cliff, that the sculp-
tor may get perspective, or swung
in that he may closely examine the
progress of the work. Pneumatic
drills, also controlled from the plat
form, will batter away at the rock s
tough face.
With rattle like battery of
machine guns they are capable of
chewing a slot foot deep and six
teen feet long in the granite every
hour.
The special designs for the ma
chinery were donated by seventeen
leading American engineers. Funds
for the construction of the ave-
some memorial were contributed in
many Southern and Northern