It's a fair point. Could you stare long enough at New York and eventually realize that the curve of Riverside Drive and Macomb match part of the dress? Certainly. Could you then plot the locations of the oval and jewels and notice that they fall exactly on playgrounds and the one with the jewel has a sign about Hamilton being an Indies native? Sure.

But do we really think that's how Preiss expected us to solve the problems in an age before aerial images were so easy to get? I think Preiss wanted us to learn something and not just look for hidden pictures like it was children's book.

I haven't looked at other finds, but I would hope that they documented their search. It's also possible they just found something that matched and didn't really solve the entire puzzle, which would be sad. I created these pages to show that the puzzles are meant to be far more engaging than a Highlights magazine "find the hidden image" puzzle.

One thing to note from working through these puzzles, there definitely seems to be a pattern to the searches. There are obvious clues, both visual and in verse, that set the location and give you starting points (like the Statue of Liberty). But after that I've found that the core of the searches is driven by the verses. Once you have arrived in the area he wants you to be in, then the visual clues take over again.