Our
Forefathers Finally Get A Face Wash
How
many days have you gone without washing your face? Two days? Five
days? The longest I can remember not washing
my face was while camping for about three days in the Cascade
Mountains of Washington State. I rinsed as much as I could, but
that was still a disturbingly long time to go without soap.
Would
you find it difficult not being able to wash your face more than
once a day? Well, what if you went without a wash for, say, 64
years? Five days doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?
I
was browsing NPR’s website the other day and came across
an interesting report about Mount Rushmore. It appears that presidents
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham
Lincoln finally got a much-needed face wash — the first
in the monument’s history. From its completion in October
1941, Mount Rushmore has gone through some of the most severe
weather that South Dakota can throw at it, without even a rinse.
As a result, microbes that infiltrated the granite surface had
colonized all four presidents faces, creating what looked like
acne pockmarks.
The
microbes were mainly lichen that bored networks of tiny tunnels
and crevices into the “skin” of all four faces. From
the distance that most tourists are able to view Mt. Rushmore,
the blemishes aren’t easy to see, even when using those
coin-slotted binoculars. Up close is another matter. But the real
problem comes in the winter when there’s lots of rain. The
rainwater runs down the faces and into the tunnels and crevices
where it gets trapped in there, which causes tiny explosions in
the granite as the mercury drops. After years and years of these
little detonations, the surface continued to get rougher and rougher,
inviting more trapped moisture, more lichen, and more destruction.
Over time, the damage will become evident even from a distance.
It was clear the lichen needed to be stopped.
In
an effort to prevent our greatest presidents from looking like
Egypt’s schnozzless Sphinx, the state park hired a company
to come out and rinse them off. The lichen, dirt, and other debris
(bird droppings, etc.) were removed with high-pressure hoses that
pumped boiling hot water to the top of the mountain. Imagine the
fun, dangling from a rope, wielding a high-pressure hose, cleaning
the crust from under Abraham Lincoln’s nose, polishing Teddy’s
specs, buffing the splinters off Washington’s wooden teeth.
And, despite 64 years of going without soap, no detergents were
used on those noble faces, for fear more deterioration of the
granite might result from a possible chemical reaction. So they
just used boiling water, figuring it’s better than nothing.
The
project took about 5 weeks to finish. Lets hope they don’t
let another 64 years pass before washing again. The very idea
makes me itch.
-
By Dave Tolbert
