Evening star., 1962-09-16
Rare Odyssey Of Our Constitution

Academy Of Sciences recon.
mended that the Declaration DE
taken down from the office. van
where exposure to sunlight had
faded it grievously, and be put
under cover. Again in 1903 q
similar recommendation was made.
and in 1920 a committee, headed
by Archivist Hunt of the State
Department, urged that both doc
uments be sealed under glass.
The Bureau of Standards began
research on how to do this, Just
before World War II. And this
in turn Stemmed from plans to
put the two documents on view
at the new Archives Building, for
which President Hoover had laid
the cornerstone in 1898. But it
took nearly another two decades
for Washington to get around to
the job of installing them in the
exhibit hall that had been de-
signed especially for them at
Archives. d.
Sealed in coses
1t was 1851, in fact, when the
Bureau Of Standards finally
sealed both the Constitution and
the Declaration into the hernnet-
ically tight cases in which they
now reside. These consist Of sew
eral layers Of tempered glass,
paper and light-filters, soldered
and bound in bronze; the contain
ers are filled with helium to pre-
vent the deterioration which oxy-
gen would cause.
The packages are roughly an
inch thick and are the outgrowth
of extensive research not only by
the bureau but also by the Libby
Owens Glass Co., which provided
the special glass, and by Eastman
Kodak, which developed a yellow
filter cover for the exhibit case.
The case which visitors see on
the second floor of the Archives
Building contains the first and
last pages Of the Constitution,
and is actually only the UP
per portion Of an elaborate COM
plex Of machinery. Each eve
ming at 10, a guard presses a hid
den switch which activates a pom
derous mechanism. This lowers
the documents 20 feet into a steel
and concrete vault which rests at
ground level. -
A heavy steel lid slides into
place, and the Constitution and
Declaration are then protected by
46 inches Of steel and concrete
in every direction, not counting
the outer walls of the building
itself. The second and third pages
of the Constitution, plus the Letter
of Transmittal, are permanently
stored in the vault. -
Ato,,;. V.,IL tr-t
When it went into use some
. II years ago, the vault was con-
sidered adequate protection
against the atomic bomb, save for
a direct hit. That notion has had
to be discarded since then, how
ever. for the hydrogen super-weap-
ons have changed a lot Of ideas
about bomb-blast protection. In
fact, the Government has even
abandoned earlier blueprints for
whisking the documents out. OF
town on an evacuation helicopter
there just wouldn't be warming
time enough.
Still. the vault is top notch
protection against virtually any
other kind of disaster, and It can
be pressed into action in a mat
ter of seconds. 1t has its own
emergency power unit, should the
main electrical source fail
Except for routine tests every
six months to make sure tn g
bronze-and-glaSs enclosure hasn't
developed helium leaks, the Con-
stitution remains untouched in its
mechanical repository. And more
and more Americans come to visit
it each year.
This year already has set a
record even though it has three
and a half months to go. Between
January l and the end of August,
visitors numbered over IL mil
lion. That's more than the total
for all of 1861, when Just over
I'll 900 showed up. 1H
April is the peak month when
the floodcrest of visiting school
classes seems to hit. But June
is a close second. The fall and
winter months are relatively slack,
yet even at the height of last
winters worst weather, February
brought total of $4,000 viewers.
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