THE GOLDFIELDS SURVEY STAFF.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 525, 3 July 1869, Page 2

THE GOLDFIELDS SURVEY STAFF.

Mr Lowe, before he ceased his duties as District Surveyor, mae'e a very elaborate report on the management and duties of the Survey Statf. Tbe following were among some of kis recommendations: —

The existing staff, consisting of a district Surveyor and Draughtsman, and three assistant Surveyors, will, I think, prove very efficient. To ensure the greatest possible efficiency, it is doubtless the most important matter to ascertain and define a complete system under which the exertions of each may be directed to one common purpose. Such a system I have the honor now to propose. I will first suggest a general plan on which I consider the Survey department should be conducted, and the work proposed to be done, and the end to be attained. And secondly, the staff required aud estimated cost of it. I have always considered the object to be obtained by a Government Survey Establishment is not only to define the position and boundaries of various blocks of land, but also to form such maps as may portray faithfully the natural features of the country, for tho purpose of affording a knowledge of the conditions of it, which can be attained in no other way. The public, for the most part, hove very imperfect idea 3 of the country, and the maps existing are very incomplete. Some good general map of the Goldfields is especially wanted, copies of which should be open for the inspection of the public in the Survey Office of each of the Warden's districts. These maps should indicate the position of all surveyed lands disposed of, or for sale or lease; showing the towns, roads, rivers, and ranges, plains, terraces, and bush, and some general description of the soil. Shewing also the Gold-diggings, past and present. Such information would obviously bo of incalculable advantage to all —travellers, prospectors, aud explorers. There has been a great deal of surveying, and yet these objects are very far from having been attained, and the reason, I submit, has been the want of a comprehensive system on which the surveys are to be conducted, and in the meanwhile each surveyor has done his work in a manner intelligible only to himself, having no real connection with tho work of others, and so the whole is disjointed, confused, and comparatively useless. In proposing a plan for the systematic working of the surveyors, I do not say anything of a trigonometrical survey, as I suppose the funds available for "West Coast surveys will be insufficient to admit of it; but there are other systems more economical, if less perfect, which would at least make somewhat of a substitute.