deposit shall be £5. The annual rent at per acre, or any fractional part of an acre, to be not less than ten shillings.

5. OFFICIAL SURVEY.

Upon receipt of such application endorsed by the Receiver of Gold Revenue, the Warden aforesaid shall as soon as may be in alluvial ground, direct a surveyor to proceed to the land applied for, and to survey the same, and in quartz lodes or veins define the length of the area the party is entitled to hold, and to report as to the area, boundaries, and description thereof, the character of the ground, the likelihood of any river, creek, or permanent water springs, or artificial reservoir which may be included within the boundaries of the said land, being required for, or the feasibility of the same being applied to, public purposes, or for the use of the miners of the district generally, and also as to any claims to prior occupancy which shall come to his knowledge, enquiry as to which it shall be his duty to institute while making the said survey, and to furnish a plan in duplicate of such land on a scale of sixteen inches to the mile, together with a tracing of so much of the general map of the district as will be sufficient to connect the particular area applied for with a least one trigonometrical station, or in the absence of any such, with some fixed point, and the surveyor shall at the time of making the survey hereinbefore directed, place a notice in the form in the Schedule hereto annexed and marked C, in some conspicuous place on the ground, and shall post a copy of such notice on the outside of the Warden’s office, and the applicants themselves shall publish three times in a newspaper circulating in the locality, all particulars relating to the lease applied for and a copy of each insertion shall be lodged with the Warden prior to or on the day the objections (if any) are heard.

IV.—OBJECTIONS.

1. OBJECTORS TO GIVE NOTICE.

Any person objecting to the issue of a lease so applied for shall, within twenty-one days after the posting of the notice by the Surveyor forward to the Warden full notice of all such objections, and shall (except in cases of encroachment) deposit the sum of ten pounds (£10), and such Warden shall give to the person making such deposit a receipt in the form in the Schedule annexed marked D, as security for the due prosecution of his objections, and in satisfaction of any expenses to which the applicant may be put by such objections if disallowed; and if such objections, should not be prosecuted or should fail, so much of such deposit shall be handed over to the applicant as may be necessary to repay the expenses of such applicant, and the balance (if any) shall be refunded to the person so objecting.

2. ENQUIRY.

After the expiration of twenty-one days allowed for objections, the Warden shall appoint a time and place for holding an enquiry into the truth of the particulars alleged by the applicant, and of the objections (if any) made by each objector, and two clear days notice of the holding of such enquiry, together with a copy of such objections, shall be given to each of the persons interested therein.

3. PROCEEDINGS AT ENQUIRY.

At such enquiry the Warden shall take evidence in relation to the application and objections, and immediately thereafter he shall forward to the office of the Governor’s Delegate the application and objections (if any) thereto, and the evidence taken by him as aforesaid, with his opinion thereon, together with report, plan, and tracing furnished to him by the Surveyor as hereinbefore directed.

4. PRIORITY OF APPLICATION.

In the event of more than one application being made for the same land or any part thereof, such one of such applications as shall have been first left with the Warden shall be first considered, and in case any two or more of such applications shall be left with the Warden at the same time, the Warden shall decide the priority of right by lot.

V.—FORM OF LEASE.

1. GOVERNOR’S DELEGATE TO ISSUE LEASES.

The Governor’s Delegate may, if he shall think fit, upon the recommendation of the Warden of the district, issue to any applicant a lease of the land applied for, or any part thereof, after the time prescribed by the 29th section of “The Goldfields Act, 1866,” viz., not less than ten days after notice of the intention to grant the same shall have been published in the County of Westland Gazette. The term of lease cannot in any case exceed fifteen years.

2. DATE OF LEASE.

Every lease shall bear date the day of execution thereof by the Governor’s Delegate, and shall be transmitted to the Warden, at whose office the same may be obtained, and the Warden shall deliver the same to the applicant, or such persons as shall be duly authorised to receive and execute the same, upon his or their application therefor, and execution thereof, within the time hereinafter prescribed, and upon delivery to the Warden of a receipt, from the Receiver of Gold Revenue