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Other Work. —The sum of £347 7s. lid. under this heading is distributed as follows: Mr. Broderiek, £234 12s. 2d.; Mr. McChue, £77 9s. Id.; and Mr. Mathias, £35 6s. Bd. The work includes specifications for and inspections of numerous road-works, preparation of plans, and reports for the proposed " Tourists' Guide," and many other duties. Proposed Opperations for 1898-99. —The amount of survey-work on hand is small, and not any of it is very urgent, the greater portion of it being agricultural-pastoral lands now held under lease; and a few plantation and other reserves in the Mackenzie County, which should only be undertaken when a surveyor is in the locality doing more urgent work. The total area that Mr. Broderick has in hand is about 29,409 acres. Of this area, 26,661 have been surveyed, but not mapped. Under the head of "Miscellaneous work" he has the trigonometrical and topographical survey of the Hunter Valley and adjacent country, about 440 square miles ; also to replace trig, stations and put in standard tubes along the roads near Temuka, survey the Otaio Biver-bed lands, and supervise the construction and improvement of the Mount Cook and other road-works in South Canterbury. Mr. McClure has a total area of 17,159 acres in hand—viz., three reserves in the Ashley County, containing 107 acres; agricultural-pastoral lands, 11,626 acres, and unmapped work, 5,426 acres; also to map, standard traverse, complete in the field, and continue the standard survey of the New Brighton Borough and adjacent districts, and to supervise roads in the North Canterbury district. Mr. Mathias has a total area of 24,734 acres in hand —viz., one reserve, 108 acres, and three rural sections, 343 acres, in the Ashburton County; fifteen reserves (444 acres), four river-bed sections (58 acres), and 23,781 acres of agricultural-pastoral lands in the Selwyn County. As regards the agricultural pastoral lands—the major portion of which is now under lease expiring on the 31st March, 1899, and the balance a year later —the original intention was to survey them into small grazingruns, but, being within the Midland Eailway area, the survey was not made. Should there be a probability of our being able to deal with them it would be advantageous to have them surveyed at once. Land Transfer. —The amount of work executed by this branch was about equal to that of last year: 190 plans were passed, 780 deeds and other instruments passed, 1,141 plans or certificates of title in duplicate were drawn, and 31 in triplicate. Certificates in lieu of Crown grants have not yet issued for some large areas of Midland Eailway country. This, of necessity, delays the issue of certificates of title to several purchasers from the company. Office-work. —Mr. Shanks, Chief Draughtsman, reports that during the year there were fifteen large and eleven small plans received from the surveyors, all of which have been checked, passed, and posted up on the compiled plans, leaving us practically without any arrears of current work to check or record. But there are still a few of the plans received prior to 1891 that require to be reduced and recorded, having been passed over at that time to enable us to keep up with the current work. However, I trust before the year is out to get this work up to date. Diagrams were placed on quadruplicate sets of 221 leases in perpetuity, on fourteen mining and other leases in triplicate, on eighty-seven temporary leases in duplicate, and on 181 back copies of leases for the Head Office : making the total number of diagrams placed on lease deeds 1,281, the majority of which are for lands acquired for settlement. Diagrams were also placed on the parchment copies of 137 certificates of title, all of which have been recorded on the record-maps. The duplicate and triplicate copies of the certificates, with two in triplicate, were prepared in the Land Transfer branch of the department. A large amount of work has been done in connection with the Land for Settlements, such as the preparation of plans for photo-lithographing the Horsley Down, Hekeao, and Pawaho Hamlet Settlements, with the requisite general descriptions of the estates, and detailed descriptions of the sections, &c. A lithographic plan of the Mount Cook Country, delineating the glaciers and surrounding features, with topographical tracing showing the proposed style of colouring the mountains and glaciers, was prepared with a view to the publication of map for the proposed " Tourists' Guide." A considerable amount of work was done for the Property-tax Department, nearly all the draughtsmen being engaged for over three months on the compilation and preparation of separate plans for the several road districts and county ridings. Having ourselves had to do a great deal of the "searching" in the Transfer office, considerably increased the time occupied by the work, which was commenced during the previous year. Mr. Schmidt was engaged for nearly a month on the compilation for the Defence Department of a map of Lyttelton Harbour, giving the soundings, and delineating the positions of all forts, guns, roads, tracks, and topographical features surrounding the harbour. The plan being required on a scale of 1 mile to 3 inches made it costly, as it necessitated all the plans incorporated being reduced to that scale. Additions and alterations were made to several of the record maps, and all certificates of title issued during the year were recorded thereon, leaving us up to date with the current work, but still very much behind with the recording of titles issued prior to the construction of the record map. The current work as regards the preparation of leases is well in hand, there being only sixty-seven in arrear ; but, unfortunately, the recording of the leases in perpetuity is very much in arrear, owing to the large amount of work which had to be done for the Property-tax Department and the absence of officers on leave or through sickness. The usual amount of miscellaneous work was executed, consisting briefly of tracings in connection with lands purchased for settlement, preparation of descriptions of reserves for gazetting, with illustrations, tracings, &c.; also, a tracing of the map of the provincial district on a scale of 4 miles to-1 inch, now in progress, and required for publication. Speaking generally of the draughting and clerical branches of this office, the work is progressing fairly satisfactorily, with the exception of arrears in recording leases in perpetuity and the back Crown grants, with, of course, the construction of new and additions to old block-sheets, work on the latter having been in abeyance for almost the last seven years, owing to the draughtsmen having been fully occupied in keeping the current work from accumulating. To make any reasonable attempt to bring the block-sheets up to date would require at least three extra draughtsmen for probably two or three years. The only arrears of clerical work is the filling-in of about a