45

&=-£

There is some very good timber in this block; although a birch forest, it contains a considerable mixture of red pine ; and in the immediate vicinity of the coast there is a large quantity of most excellent iron-wood. From Wairaurahiri Biver to Sandhill Point, a distance of, say, seven miles, the level land is very good, but it narrows down considerably to a strip of about three-quarters of a mile wide, a little broken and ridgy, and covered with mixed bush of rather an inferior nature. I may here mention that the land immediately on the coast-line from Big Biver to Sandhill Point maintains a pretty uniform elevation of about 100 feet. The land between Sandhill Point and the big bight in Te Waiwai Bay, a distance of, say, eight miles, is similar in quality and breadth to the preceding block, but considerably steeper, and covered with a mixed bush probably of an improving nature. Immediately behind Mussel Beach I noticed some good red pine, which appeared to run up the spurs some distance towards the Hump. I presume a report has already been made on the land from the big bight in Te Waiwai Bay to Waiau Mouth, a distance of eleven miles, but I may mention that it is similar in quality and breadth to that between Waiau Mouth and Orepuki. Between Te Waiwai Bay and the east arm of Hauroto Lake it appears to be poor, mossy, ridgy land, covered mostly with birch. There is some red pine on the spurs adjacent to the south side of the east arm of the lake, but no great quantity. It will be seen that there is a strip of good land in breadth, about one mile, running along the coast from Waiau Mouth to Big Biver, which will at some future date, no doubt, be used for settlement. The great drawback is there are no harbours in the whole distance (about forty miles), but there are a number of good boat-landings in northerly and easterly weather. From Puysegur Point to head of Long Sound, although bordered the whole distance with timber, it is of no commercial value, being principally birch and of a very inferior description, and in the interior it is even of a more inferior nature, consisting mostly of stunted birch and bog pine. Lakes. —Hauroto is about twenty-two miles long by about one wide, and covers an area of about 17,000 acres. Poteriteri Lake is about eighteen miles by one, and next in size is Lake Hakapoua, at the head of Big Biver, which is about four and a half miles long by half a mile wide, and is tidal. There are a number of other lakes scattered throughout the country, but none of them are of any great size. Birds. —l did not see any that are not common to the high country ; kiwis are not very numerous in the interior, but kakapos are very plentiful in most places. No signs of the takahe (Notomis Mantelli), but I am led to believe that this bird is more likely to be found in the country west of Lake Te Anau. I may mention that the rabbits have not yet reached the Princess Mountains, but there are a few round the south-east side of Lake Hauroto, and I saw traces of them on the east side, as far up as opposite Caroline Peak; but I neither saw them nor their traces on the Billow Mountains opposite the above-mentioned peak. All through the interior I take the rock to be mica schist and gneiss, the latter probably a white granite. From a point about two miles up Long Sound from Kisbee Bay the formation changes to sandstone, slate, and granite, and this extends along the coast, with an occasional break of conglomerate, to about three miles east of Big Biver. From here to Sandhill Point a bed of drift gravel 20 to 50 feet deep overlies a soft slate formation. A mile or two east of Windsor Point I noticed on the beach a seam of coal cropping out, and this I presume is a continuation of the coal worked some years ago at Preservation Inlet. In concluding this report I may say that the country to north of that which I have gone over appears equally rugged, of about the same altitude, but probably more rocky and destitute of vegetation. I have, &c, J. Spence, Esq., Chief Surveyor. John Hay, District Surveyor.

TABLES. No. 4.—Abstract of the Surveyors Employed in each Provincial District, and of the Work on Hand, on 30th June, 1882.

7—C. 2.

Surveyors Employed. Work on Hand. Chief Surveyors. Staff. Temporary. District. Trig. Settlement. ■Nnt.ivp Bailway, Block 1c Eoad >and iilOCK, dCC. Waiter . race !. P. Smith, A.S.G. \ Humphries 2:! 7 16 11 Auckland .. Taranaki .. Sq. Miles. 3,615 Acres. 175,603 (7,500 ]6,500 27,979 24,000 90,873 315 48,187 131,563 71,515 27,645 Acres. 355,652 18,000 25,000 324,404 Miles. " 337 ! » 134 I. Baker '. W. A. Marchant . S. Browning I. G. Clarke .. i. Mueller '. H. Baker .. V. Arthur '. Spence 4 11 10 2 5 9 IT 4 3 4 5 Hawke's Bay Wellington Nelson Marlborough Westland .. Canterbury Otago Southland .. 561 629 '.531 "569 28 94 i Totals 86 40 5,336 505,853 723,625 603