HURRICANE WARNING (Biographical)

In examining stone buildings, monuments, and memorials for the National Park Service in the 1980s,* they wanted to know if the dome of the Jefferson Memorial was made of limestone or concrete as the contractor was given his choice on this. I told them that was easy. It must be concrete because he could make the ceiling with just a few molds and repeat the casts for the ceiling, but, to do it from limestone, each block would have to be machined which would be very expensive. Well, they wanted to know the answer anyway, but I wasn’t to knock off a piece of material from the ceiling with my rock hammer, even a little piece, and wasn’t to drop acid on it. All I could use was a flashlight and a hand lens (a little powerful magnifying glass or loop). I told them that there was a good chance I couldn’t tell the difference between limestone and concrete, but they said I should make my best effort.

So they had the scaffolding put up , I don’t know but maybe 20 feet, to a ledge just under the ceiling. They wouldn’t permit drilling of anchors into the memorial for scaffolding, of course, so it was a free standing scaffolding which swayed back and forth quite a bit. I was to climb the scaffolding, wait until it swayed near the ledge, and step off onto the ledge. All this was made a little more exciting because there was a hurricane warning. Well, I did this, nervously, because I wasn’t sure the scaffolding wouldn’t fall over. Even with the flashlight, the lighting wasn’t good, and I couldn’t tell whether the ceiling was made of concrete or limestone. To be honest, I probably couldn’t have told the difference even with good lighting. Workmen below kept calling me to hurry up because a hurricane was coming. I waited for the scaffolding to sway back to the ledge, stepped onto it and climbed down. As soon as I got off, the scaffolding was taken down. It turned out that the NPS had spent $25,000 to put up and take down the scaffolding only to hear from me that “I don’t know.” Incidentally, the hurricane never appeared.

*See http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/12/muammar-qaddafi-and-me-biographical.html for more details on the acid rain program.