The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1929-09-27


Society," Washington. d. CO.
THERE are few opportunities
anywhere in the world 10 see
i so many historic sites in half
dozen hours as during the brief
airplane trip from Constantinople to
Athens.
The route is paved with geography;
with history, which is geography in
teracting with mankind; and with
mythology, in which elemental geo.
graphic forces are given childishly hui
man characteristics.
Poets and historians, ladies and their
Leanders, Argonauts and Anzacs, have
so mosaicked with meaning this age
old route that the air traveller, COM
pleting it between breakfast and
luncheon, would need that last-min-
misunderstanding clairyoyance to
take in even the broad outlines of the
picture on the rift between West and
East, Europe and Asia, sailor and
nOmad. Greek and barbarian, between
what was known and what was off the
map.
The battleship AgamemnOn, leading
the allied feet into the Dardanelles,
4. D. 1915, churned the very waters
that bore 20 the siege of Troy Aga
memnOn's thousand ships, launched by
a wOman's face, almost as many years
before the Christian era. Xerxes, Alex
ander, and the Turks, their exploits
separated by centuries, all crossed the
HellespOnt at the same point. The
nOrtheasters that cool or chill both
BOsporus and GalIipoli, and the treach-
erous currents which inspire gruesOme
gossip are The same that Strabo and
Herodotus described.
The plane is fitted with pontoons
and rises from the Bosporus. Behind,
the Genoese castle of Anatoli KAYAK,
only a moment ago outlined against
the Black sea, has fattened out
against northern tip of Asia Minor.
As a point is rounded, with the pal
aces and embassy gardens of Therapia
below, the view extends to the Golden
Horn.
By the time the strait between Ru-
nell and Anatoh Hissar is reached the
plane is so high above Mohammed the
Conqueror's "Cutthroat Castle" that
the ground plan, said to be a chiro-
graph Of his Arabic name, is just a
comfortable eyeful.
The ground plan of Robert College
takes on rare symmetry. In its center
a football game is being played by
two tribes Of vari-colored ants. Now
the Constantinople Woman's college
is reached, its buildings aligned into
one imposing facade.
The coal-pockets that smudge the
view below Arnaut Koi sweep south
toward the glittering jeweI-box mosque
Of Orta Koi and the roofless ruin of
Cheragan-palace, prison, and parlia-
uent house.
Looking Down on Stamboui.
There is u slight haze above STAN
boul, the Seraglio palaces are visibly
isolated from the teeming city; and
the cornucopia curve Of the Golden
Horn-despite its fame, mere nick
in the eastern edge of Europe, is clear.
IL cut between close-rooted slopes.
pock-marked by fire and mournful
with expresses rising above marble
skeletoned cemeteries. The tabled
seven hills unite into one main, curv'
ing ridge.
Now the plane is almost over fat
domed Sancta Sophia; and the six
minarets of the Sultan Ahmed mosque
so needIelike from the ground, seem
squat towers. The obelisks in the Hip
podrome, ByZantium's antique pleas
ure center, have no height, but their
shadows stretch wide across park
the perfection of which was never be-
fore so evident. One wonders when
architects will begin to design struc
lures TO be beautiful from the air, as
landscape gardening already is.
Outside the left windows the Prince:
Islands battle in sun-spread quick.
silver and the Gulf of Ismid loses it
self beyond.
Off the right wing the landward wal
of Byzantium, starting fmposingly
with the Seven Towers, dwindles away
until its battlements are lost behind
a hill overlooking the Sweet Waters OF
Europe.
Now one looks straight down on the
island of Marmora, Unexpectedly large
and full of valleys. Around tiny bay
in the north edge, marble cliffs or slas
dumps. white as chalk, describe 9
horseshoe curve.
Now Europe edges in from the right
with the ridge of Tekir Dagh. empha
sized by cumuli. stretching down Il
give backbone TO Gallipoli. What 6
place TO study geography! The two