Sandra Long, age 12, of Albany, New York, for her question:

Why was the carving done on Mount Rushmore?

Mount Rushmore stands in the Black Hills of South Dakota and its mighty peak of solid granite as 6,000 feet above sea. level. Such a peak of durable granite is expected to stand the challenge of the elements for many thousands of years to come. For this reason it was chosen to be a monument to four great men who helped build our country ‑ Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

The great artist who designed arms executed most of this work was Gutzon Borglum,born in Idaho and educated in Nebraska. Later he studied in Paris and was greatly influenced by the work of the French sculptor Rodin. Borglum began the work on Mt. Rushmore, the biggest carvings in the world, in 1922. At his death in 1947, the work was taken over and completed by his son Lincoln Borglum.