Viewing page 90 of 469

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[underline]] Chapter IV. [[/underline]]   74.

observations; but even as it was, we found the various features of the site brought out by the slanting rays of the westering sun with a coherence and a clarity of detail far beyond my expectations.  Our experiment abundantly confirmed my belief in the value of the aeroplane as an adjunct to archaeological reconnaissance-work. (49)
----------------
(49)
This idea was by no means original with me, for it had previously been put into effect, with excellent results, in many other lands.  The aerial surveys of archaeological sites executed by O.G.S. Crawford, Esq., the editor of the British quarterly [[underline]] Antiquity [[/underline]], deserve especial mention.
------------------------------
We first flew over the site at an elevation of about 2500 feet. The groups of mounds were of course its most conspicuous feature.  As I had previously seen them, from the ground, I had been able to detect in them little if any regularity in arrangement.  Seen from above, however, they at once fell into orderly groupings, the individual mounds separated from one another by what had evidently once been avenues, courts, plazas, and perhaps parks.  Then as we flew on westward we were able to pick out the ancient city-wall, with its broad shadow.  First we followed it southward, and then from the point where it turned east we flew over it in that direction, hoping to trace its farther extension; but this we were unable to do.
We then circled the site a second time, at an altitude of from 500 to 200 feet, in order to gain a nearer view of its details. The inhabitants of the numerous peasant hamlets beneath us had gathered in excited groups, believing, we later learned, that our aeroplane was a flying dragon.  As we swooped downward from our former greater elevation, they broke and scattered in all directions, some of them even trying to outrun us over the plowed ground.
Our flight gave us an excellent idea of the nature of the site