At this point in the evolution in motion pictures, a panorama was a picture taken from a moving platform -- typically a railroad or a boat moving past a coast. Modern pan shots began in the middle of the next decade as movie cameras became small enough that a strong man could wrestle them around in a circle. For the moment, however, a camera was far too bulky and heavy.
This one is novel to me. Today it might be a rising crane shot or a helicopter shot. There were no cranes. Raoul Walsh seems to have come up with them for D.W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE in 1915 and there was no heavier-than air flight on any sort for several years after this picture was made.
Given that the camera is pointed at the ground and ends up several hundred feet higher, this must have been a disconcerting picture for an audience looking forward.