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to show some of the interior detail on their plans, or to connect their work with any trigonometrical points which might be easy of access. But these were exceptions, and the staff and the general style of working remained much as before. Nevertheless, by employing his own trigonometrical observers in making the necessary connections, by a close scrutiny of the surveyors' work, and by a great deal of painstaking labour, Mr. Heale has at length succeeded in bringing these surveys of the last seven or eight years into a fair state. Hundreds of cases of errors, and of gaps and overlaps arising from them, were detected in the course of this investigation and sent back for correction; and Mr. Heale is of opinion that the residual errors are now so small that no great future difficulties need be apprehended, and that nearly all of the work would, with some little rectification, be available for replotting on new sheets if required. These remarks, however, scarcely apply to the surveys made before 1867, which do not lie together, and therefore could not be resurvcyed en masse: they have since been surrounded in most cases by other surveys, and their errors are approximately known. Perhaps no further special inconvenience will arise from them, but there are very few estates in which readjustment will not be required. Many of the plans are deficient in information, and the field-books are missing. The descriptions in Crown grants, moreover, are so loose that they could hardly be appealed to to establish boundaries; of these, possession, and oral evidence of original marks on the ground, must be the practical proofs. The system laid down by Mr. Heale for the survey of Native claims will no longer, it is to be hoped, be so difficult of enforcement as hitherto. It insists, as its main features, on the connection of every survey with at least one, and as many more as practicable, of the trigonometrical stations; on the verification of common boundaries where two surveys join; on the abandonment of all compass bearings, and of the practice of cutting straight undefined lines of a traverse if the terminal points can be accurately fixed without cutting; on keeping field-books in ink, or at least in metallic pencil; and on the survey of all well-marked internal natural features, with such supplementary sketching and filling-in as shall furnish details for a fair topographical map. The surveyor draws the plan himself, on scales varying from four to eighty inches to the mile according to the size of the claim. The plotting is then checked in the office by the details given on the plan; edges common to former surveys are compared, and the work collated on the index map. The field-books, however, are not called for unless the plan is deficient in information. If errors are found, the work goes back for correction. The maps, "when passed, form the real records, the indexes being only used for compilation and reference. The plans on Crown grants, which are reduced copies of the originals, show linkages but not bearings, and enough surrounding detail to identify the parcel and illustrate the description of boundaries in the grant, which also states the approximate acreage. As yet, no maps have been published. On the whole, I gather that out of the 4,711,556 acres which make up the total area of Native claims hitherto surveyed in New Zealand, but little if any has been done with such accuracy and detail as would enable it to form part of a general cadastral survey. It is difficult to specify exactly how much is good and how much bad; though there can be little doubt that the least trustworthy surveys are those done before 1867, and the best some of those done recently in Auckland and Hawke's Bay in connection with the new triangulation, and those in Canterbury and Otago. Probably, however, large errors will occasionally be found in all parts, as outlying and surrounding surveys come to be closed in. The original danger was overlap ; this, I think, Mr. Heale has effectually guarded against; and the elasticity of Crown grants has now been so well established that perhaps no great inconvenience need be anticipated from other kinds of error. If a sound system be introduced, and made the basis of Land Transfers, possession and documentary titles may gradually be brought into harmony as required, without any special active provision for the purpose. The abstract of the Native claims surveyed and mapped is as follows : — Acres. Auckland ■.. .. .. .. .. .. 2,330,760 Hawke's Bay .. .. .. .. .. .. 1,124,000! Wellington .. .. .. .. .. .. 1,235,027 Canterbury and Otago .. .. .. .. .. 21,769 Total .. .. .. .. 4,711,556 Surveys of Confiscated Lands. While, as I have shown, the Native lands surveys have not been executed hitherto in a satisfactory manner, still less can be said in favour of the section surveys of the Confiscated lands, which amount in all to about 1,916,000 acres, extending over large tracts in the Waikato 3 and Bay of Plenty districts. None of them are good; indeed those in the Waikato are as bad as bad can be, done mostly by contract several years ago, plotted to all kinds of compass meridians, unchecked, and unconnected. The greater part of these lands, nevertheless, have either been allotted, or sold, or Crown granted, on the basis of those worthless surveys. In one part the 1 There is a discrepancy between the quantities returned by Messrs. Heale and Weber (Hawke's Bay) which I could not reconcile. I have rectified it as well as I could. 2 The Waikato surveys were mostly in fifty-acre sections.