Show IV T 0 J if t TT t N 6 anity 1119 0 asatri 19 w r 43 AIR cooj ca HE MAKING of battle beld monuments and memorials has devel aped into an important industry indi ind stry in the united during the past few ears this is due firs of all to the in crease ti ir the number and size of our battle field national parks it Is now the policy of the national government to convert into national parks the tracts governments of land in the southern and middle states which were the scenes of the great battles of the civil war each year sees new reservations of this kind ao so quiren by purchase of congress or through other means and set aside as permanent testimonials of the nation nations s gratitude to the men who fought and died there keeping pace with the creation of new parks is the policy of extension being pur sued with nith reference to the older established bat biefield tie field parks which hive not included at the outset ou as few of them have the entire areas embraced i he battle which they commemorate A second and even more direct influence in tos fos bering the present activity in the creation of memorials in marble and bronze is the custom which has grown up with the development of the battlefield park plan of suitably marking every historic spot at the scene of a great struggle between the union and confederate forces explains the dozens and even hundreds of statues monuments and markers that are now to be found in the average important battlefield park some of the monuments are erected by ap atlon of congress or by funds set aside by the legislatures of states that desire to thus honor their sons who fought in defense of the flag an nen en greater number of these enduring endi endL ring tributes tri bites ive 1 alvi A pir 1 hofei however er have been erected by organizations made up of the survivors of companies troops batteries regiments or other minor divisions of a contesting army and who take this means of tes tea tidying to their regard for their fallen comrades perhaps the best evidence of the extent to which modern sculpture is being relied upon to commemorate the deeds and the heroes of the greatest of civil wars is afforded by a tour of the gettysburg national park here lining more than miles of carefully prepared roadway and marking every significant point in the three days battle are a total of more than monuments memorial shafts and tablets and more than 1000 1 markers many of these testimonials in marble granite and bronze are elaborate and costly and the aggregate cost amounts to several million dollars and yet on this battlefield as elsewhere the labor of love is only partially completed nu berous other monuments are definitely projected and yet others are in contemplation the provision of monuments in ever increasing numbers for the battlefields of which gettysburg is only one would indeed be an appalling task were it necessary to laboriously chisel out of marble by hand all the statues and carved fig ures however modern ingenuity has provided means tor for effective short cuts in battlefield sculpture expedients that make it possible to unveil a monument within a few months after the money for it has been appropriated many of the present day bat memorials are in bronze and in the cast of such a monument it Is 1 only necessary to model the figure in plaster molds are taken from this and when forwarded to the foundry enable the casting of the figure in bronze a replica or exact duplicate of the nal design which the sculptor fashioned in the clay or plaster the correspondingly rapid creation of granite or marble statues presented ted for a long time more of a problem but it has been solved and largely by the invention of some wonderful new tools and appliances which make the long dreamed of sculpture by machinery a reality the ma chines or rather tools which now perform in rain min utes what the old time hand chiselm hours to accomplish are all operated b ceans of corn com pressed air utilized in much the same way that at each one of these modern monument making institutions the air is compressed at a central power plant and is led by means of pipes and hose to the various localities where the mechanical chia this eling Is to be done the designs for a statue or monument are first prepared by draftsmen and are then outlined on the stones to be cut with these there markings as a guide a workman mani P ula ting one of the portable pneumatic tools can carve out quickly and with great accuracy the intended design the principle of the superiority of the mechanical carver Is that it rains hundreds of blows a minute whereas the artisan with mallet and chisel would not deliver more than one or two blows it can be appreciated that the surface to be cut is covered much more rapidly by the ma chine chino method and moreover the air driven chisel will out more accurately and with greater uniform ity than any save the moat most expert set lator unaided |