2-8 拉什莫尔山（在线收听）

Mt. Rushmore

Each year almost three million people from all over the world make a special trip to this remote part of the United States just to see this incredible sculpture.

Gutzom Borglum was one of America’s leading sculptors. In 1924, he received a letter from the State Historian. And, he wrote to him and asked him to come to the Black Hills and see if there was any possibility of using some of the rock outcroppings¹ in the Black Hills that would draw tourists to his state which he loved.

Borglum was imbued with the idea of having the people that had been important in the creation of his country, the creators of America. State officials agreed and Borglum decided he would carve four American presidents.

Shortly after Borglum began blasting² into the sides of the mountain in 1927, the United States plunged into³ the Great Depression⁴. During those tough years, jobs were hard to come by⁵. When the work first started on the mountain, people here didn't have jobs of any kind. They were willing to work for anything. And, Borglum trained them and they stayed with him through thick and thin⁶. Over the next decade, four hundred local men lived on the mountain top.

Even for a talented sculptor like Gutzom Borglum, carving giant mountain size figures was a monumental⁷ task. The first thing he did was to build a scale model of the mountain. An inch on the model was a foot⁸ on top of the mountain. When Borglum would start one of the faces, they would start with the nose, because that was the furthest point out. From Washington to Lincoln the carving measures 365 feet, which is longer than a football field. Each head is sixty feet high. The head on the Statue of Liberty measures only 17 feet. When sculpting on this scale, the chisel⁹ of choice is dynamite¹⁰. Close to 450 thousand tons of granite¹¹ were blown off the face¹² of the mountain.

Amazingly Borglum’s blasters were so talented that they could come within four inches of the finished surface with their explosions. To take a mountain like this back in the early '30s, to be able to carve the faces and make them so natural with the equipment that we had to work with was just incredible that a man could have a vision to do it.

Unfortunately Gutzom Borglum died in 1941, just a few months short of finishing the job. But his son Lincoln picked up the chisel and gave the mountain its finishing touches¹³ an achievement that put South Dakota on the national map. Today mount Rushmore is one of the most visited monuments in the United States. A shrine¹⁴ to four of America’s greatest presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

For bringing the American dream to a remote granite mountainside, Gutzom Borglum’s monumental sculpture carves out the number seven spot on our list.

注释：

1.outcropping [5autkrCpiN] n. [地]露头；外露，露出地表

2.blast [blB:st] vi. 炸，爆炸

3.plunge into骤然陷入

4.Great Depression 大萧条（指1929～约1939年发生于美国和其他国家的经济衰退）

5.come by 得到，获得

6.through thick and thin 不顾艰难险阻，在任何情况下

7.monumental [7mCnju5mentl] adj. 巨大的；不可估量的

8.foot [fut] n. 英尺

9.chisel [5tFizl] n. 凿子，錾子

10.dynamite [5dainEmait] n. 达纳炸药；氨爆炸药

11.granite [5^rAnit] n. 花岗岩，花岗石

12.face [feis] n. 山坡；陡面；[矿]采掘面，工作面

13.touch [tQtF] n. （完工前的）细小变动；修饰；润色

14.shrine [Frain] n. 圣地；神圣场所

拉什莫尔山

　　每年，全世界几乎有300万游客专程前往美国这个偏远地区，只为一睹这一不同凡响的雕刻艺术。

　　格曾姆·博格勒姆是美国的一位著名雕刻家。1924年，他收到一封州历史学家的信，请他去黑山考察一下，看看是否有可能利用黑山的一些地表岩石，把游客吸引到他热爱的州来。

博格勒姆一心想着要为缔造美国的重要人物雕像。州官员表示同意，于是博格勒姆决定，他将雕刻4位美国总统像。

　　1927年，博格勒姆在山壁破土开工后不久，美国陷入了大萧条。在那个艰难的年代，很难找到工作。山上的工程刚开始时，这里的人没有任何工作可做。他们愿意做任何事情。博格勒姆对他们进行了培训，大家在一起同甘共苦。在此后的10年间，400名当地人在山顶风餐露宿。

　　即便对格曾姆·博格勒姆这样一位天才雕刻家来说，雕刻山一般大小的巨像也是一项十分重大的任务。他做的第一件事就是按比例打造出山的模型。模型上的一英寸相当于山顶上的一英尺。当博格勒姆开始雕刻面部时，他们会从鼻子开始，因为鼻子是面部最突出的部位。从华盛顿到林肯，雕刻的尺寸达365英尺，这比一个足球场还要长。每一个头部都有60英尺高，而自由女神的头部也只有17英尺。在进行这些雕刻时，选择的凿子即是炸药。从山表大约炸掉了近45万吨的花岗岩。

　　令人吃惊的是，博格勒姆的爆破工人非常能干，他们的爆破能精确到离加工层面4英寸之内。远在20世纪30年代早期，在这样的山上能雕刻出这些头像，并在设备有限的情况下使它们显得那么自然，栩栩如生，一个人能有这样的智慧真是令人难以置信。

　　不幸的是，格曾姆·博格勒姆在1941年这项工程还差几个月就完工时与世长辞了，但他的儿子林肯继承父业，完成了这项山体雕凿工程——这是一项使南达科他州在全国遐迩闻名的艺术杰作。今天，拉什莫尔山是美国游人最多的地方之一，是瞻仰4名美国历史上最伟大总统的圣地：乔治·华盛顿、托马斯·杰斐逊、西奥多·罗斯福和亚伯拉罕·林肯。

　　由于将美国梦带到了偏远的花岗岩山坡上，格曾姆·博格勒姆不朽的雕刻巨作位列我们的十大人工奇观排行榜第7名。