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It was about this time (1914) that Mrs Wellcome intituted, and Barret carried out, some of the earliest experiments in archaeological air photography. The development of the aeroplane was then still in its infancy and large kites were used. No written account of these experiments is preserved in the records, but from the photographs it seems that two methods were tried. In the first the camera was lifted directly by the kite, the shutter release being operated by a string from the ground. The photographs taken in this way were those looking directly downwards. The second method was more complicated but enabled angled photographs to be taken and from greater heights. Here the main kite carried into the air a light wire cable, and along this a "kite trolley" carrying the camera was sent, in much the same way as a schoolboy sends a "messenger" along his kite string (....) The sail was held open -presumably against a spring- on the upward journey and was folded up so that the trolley would slide down again by its own weight. To judge from the photograph (....), the trolley carried a mechanism hich would, after it had travelled a predetermined distance upwards along the cable, operate the camera shutter release and immediately afterwards trip the spring which held the sail open, so that the trolley and camera would come down again. (....)
Yet the experiments on the whole were successfull and excellent results were at times obtained. (....)
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