Fig. 206.—Venice from the air, showing dredged channels.
Italian official photograph.

Fig. 207.—Bengasi, a North African town, surveyed for the first time from the air.
Italian official photograph.

Fig. 208.—Thurnberg on the Rhine.
Photograph by photographic section A. E. F.

Among other uses for aerial photography will be the location of timber. As one illustration, may be taken the discovery of mahogany trees. Their foliage at certain times of the year is of characteristic color. This may be recorded on color sensitive plates with a scientifically chosen filter, and the cutting expedition sent out with the photograph as a guide. In this as in other cases where rough or unexplored country is to be covered, it is a question whether the airplane will after all be the most feasible craft, on account of its necessarily rapid rate of travel, and its need for known landing fields. The dirigible of large cruising radius, which can seek its landing field at leisure, is probably indicated for this kind of work. It may indeed, as already hinted, prove to be the chief photographic aircraft of the future.

Archæological surveys offer a fascinating opportunity for airplane or dirigible balloon photography to render scientific service. Buried in desert sands or overgrown with tropical vegetation the ancient cities of Asia Minor, of Burma, and of Yucatan evade discovery, and even when found remain unmapped for decades. Discovery and mapping can now go hand-in-hand. The topography of barbaric or colonial towns and villages, whose importance could not warrant elaborate surveys, but which should nevertheless be a matter of record, will be quickly and easily plotted by photography (Fig. [207]). To this day who knows how the streets run in Timbuctu, and how, save from the air, can we ever map the teeming cities of China? He who would follow in the footsteps of Haroun-al-Raschid can even now explore the by-ways of Bagdad by the aid of the Royal Air Force photographic map!

INDEX