The Manhattan Project was established in the United States during WW2 to create the atomic bomb. It was led by Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie R. Groves with scientists from the United States, Great Britain and Canada. The Manhattan Project was chiefly carried out in three secret locations at Hanford, Washington, Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Manhattan Project produced the atomic bombs, "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, ended WW2. The purpose of the Manhattan Project was to develop an Atomic Bomb. The Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the "Fat Man" atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Manhattan Project started on May 12, 1942 when President Roosevelt signed an order creating a top secret project to develop the nuclear weapon. The Manhattan Project was kept top secret for fear that the nuclear technology would be stolen by enemy spies belonging to Germany or Japan or fall into the hands of the Russians. Info about the Manhattan Project could be used to accelerate their own nuclear projects or to mount covert operations against the project. The famous scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project included Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, David Bohm, Leo Szilard, Vannevar Bush, Walter Zinn , David Bohm, Herbert L. Anderson, Eugene Wigner, Otto Frisch, Rudolf Peierls, Felix Bloch, John R. Dunning, Niels Bohr, Emilio Segre, James Franck, Ernest O. Lawrence, Klaus Fuchs, Arthur Wahl and Edward Teller. http://m.american-historama.org/1929-1945-depression-ww2-era/manhattan-project.htm
What the author is saying in this text is that the sculptures are so precise that they are still impressive when you look at them up close, even though they were not meant to be exhibited directly on the floor, but on a high pedestal. The "jowls" and "muzzle" of the horse are the "things that could not have been seen when they were on their high perch," yet the carver paid as much attention to detail ("cut with as much care") when he sculpted them as if they were at eye level ("as though they had been made for the floor").
