MAPS WANTED

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 298, 10 September 1920, Page 7

MAPS WANTED

SURVEY OFFICE REQUIRES DOUBLED ST^FF.

The draughting branch of the Surrey Department requires to be doubled in strength in order that the work may be brought up to date in five or eevea years' time, according l to the annual report of the Department. "The volume of work required to bring the publications into line with the demands of tho community,'" says the report, "is prao tically as follows:—New drawings are required for 90 boroughs. 65 town distHcts, and 530 small centres; new drawings are required for over 400 survey districts; new drawings are required for 178 twoinilo cadastral sheets. None of the above numbers has ever been drjwn at all, and 110 account is taken here of the numbers already drawn and requiring revision. The most useful mai> at present is the Department's one-mile county map, which is used in large quantities, Of the 130 counties in New Zealand, four or five are not more than about three or four years behindhand—the rest are from twenty years old upwards. Thi» map, however, is to be superseded by tlw new series of two-mile cadastral on a better system and with more copious information.

"Of the four cities, only Wellington and Dnnedin are drawn, and neither i 9 now up to date. Tho other two are in hand, and may take two years to finish. General maps of New Zealand i>ro fairly irp to date, but several new scales oncl classes are required. Of the four-mile and eieht-mile maps, seven new drawings are required on tlio old system, but the new cadastral will supersede them. Six now drawings have been waiting the printer's convenience for nearly two years.

"The most pressing work is the pateh-Ing-up of the old county maps to meet the immediate call for statistical maps and other -requirements, but permanent work is not proposed on them; their present condition is a danger and expense. Briefly, over 1250 quite new maps require to be drawn, and in addition the revision to date of many hundred more,' merely in order to meet the ordinary demands made over the counters of the Department every, day."