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In the Wanganui District the 8,818 acres comprise, 8,813 acres of Rural sections and twenty quarter acre allotments in the Town of Wanganui. These surveys have been completed in Field work, calculations, and plots.

In the Rangitikei District the plots of 1800 acres have been completed, but of the remaining 600 acres the plotting has yet to be done.

In the Rangitikei-Manawatu and the Manawatu Districts surveys are almost completed both in Field work and plot.

In the Wellington Districts the whole of the 33,000 acres above stated, comprise arrears of New Zealand Company’s surveys; of this area only 3,600 acres have been completed in field work and plot. The remainder may be said to be, as yet in progress only, that is, the preliminary traverses properly referred to Trig., amounting to some 70 miles in length and mostly running through bushed valleys, and all the original survey lines, marks, &c., which could be found have been correctly tied to these traverses, so that the fitting in of the sections becomes now merely a matter of office work. It may yet employ the time of the several surveyors who have been employed on these works, some 6 months more to complete the pegging of the sections. It was found on working that the adjustment of these old surveys occupied more time than was contemplated (having reference to the area surveyed), but it must be borne in mind that these districts have undergone piecemeal survey many times during the past 30 years, and that consequently the confliction of boundaries in several cases, cause delays which are not met with in other surveys.

In the Wairarapa District, in the area above stated as surveyed, 27,868 acres arrears of survey, have been completed in field work and calculation but which still require plotting; and 13,000 acres, also arrears of survey, have been completed in field work only.

These surveys will occupy some two months more of the time of the Surveyor to complete. Of the new surveys, 1400 acres, the whole is completed in field work and plots.

In the East Coast District, the field work only of the 12,280 acres has been completed, but there is only about a fortnight’s work to complete the calculations and plots. In this district, a triangulation which is nearly completed, has been thrown over an area of some 100,000 acres.

On the West Coast of the Province between the Waikanae and Manawatu Rivers, surveys have been executed over 314,800 acres of Native Lands. Plans of these surveys have been forwarded to the Native Lands Court now sitting at Foxton. Surveys also of various blocks of Native Lands consisting of about 7000 acres, have been executed in the Wairarapa District, of which the plots are not yet completed. For the performance of the above surveys, four survey parties have been specially employed.

As the plotting of the various surveys performed in the field during the fine weather season of the year, is usually done in the Survey Office during the winter months, I estimate that the total amount, 148,759 acres, as before stated, in more or less a forward state of completion, may probably occupy the staff some three months of the present year to finally complete.

The Major Triangulation, for connecting the East and West Coasts of the Province, has been progressed with as fast as circumstances permitted. There are still two stations to erect on the Tararua Ranges. A minor triangulation was also commenced simultaneously with the surveys of Native Lands between the Waikanae and Manawatu Rivers, but I fear that many of the stations, which cost much time and labor to erect, have since been destroyed by the Natives.

In the Survey Office, Crown Grants for 108,000 acres have been drafted, reductions and compilations of several surveys into District maps have been effected, and lithograph maps of the various newly surveyed blocks of land offered for sale during the year have been executed. The Geographical Map of the Province is now about one-half completed. The usual amount of tracing work for the information of the public has been performed, and at times this latter duty has been very onerous owing to the several copies and tracings of the West Coast surveys which have been demanded. I must also mention that the change to the new offices now occupied by the Survey Department, interrupted for some considerable period the usual routine work of the office.

In the Lithographic Department, the map of the eastern portion of the Province, scale 80 chains to an inch, has been completed and also a map exhibiting the principal triangulation of the Province.

Having now reviewed all the works which have been executed in this Department during the past year, I will refer briefly to those which are proposed to be undertaken during the current year:—