7

C—la

Among other duties performed by the draughtsmen there were 181 descriptions made ; measur-ing-bands tested, one 7-chain, three 6-chain, three 5-chain, and four 1-chain ; ten Proclamations were prepared and gazetted under the New Zealand State-guaranteed Advances, Act, 1909 ; ten Proclamations were prepared and gazetted under the New Zealand State-guaranteed Advances Act, 1909, as amended by section 22 of the New Zealand State-guaranteed Advances Amendment Act, 1910; nine licenses were prepared and issued to surveyors, enabling them to practise under the Land Transfer Act, 1908. Thirty-two schedules for the Local Bills Committee of the House of Representatives were examined and certified to. Good progress has been made with the map of the City of Wellington and Suburbs mentioned last year, and the completion may bo looked for at no distant date. Sheet 5, Auckland, is being brought up to date, and a new map of the Nelson District is in progress. During the coming year responsible duties will have to be carried out by draughtsmen in connection with the preparation of maps for the Representation Commissions for the readjustment of the boundaries of the electoral districts of the Dominion. This will entail an immense amount of work, as seventy-six popular descriptions of proposed electorates will have to I c prepared, and subsequently seventy-six detailed descriptions denning in technical terms the boundaries of the electoral districts as finally determined by tho Commissioners. In addition to this, maps on a 16-mile scale will have to be prepared and published, and three sets of large-scale maps —one for the Clerk of Parliaments, one for the Chief Electoral Officer, and one for the Head Office —will have to be prepared. I have again to thank all the officers for their assistance given me during the year. Mr. C. E. Adams, Chief Computer, reports : — Triangidation. —Horizontal and vertical angles have been observed at trigonometrical stations —Bull Hill, Mount Dundas, Mount Holdsworth, and Rangitumau, in the Wellington district —by Mr. H. E. Girdlestone, using a 10-in. vernier Everest theodolite. The angles have been checked and made ready for calculation. The probable errors of the various sections of the Elthani Okaiawa base-line and of the whole base have been checked. Tidal Survey. —The Wellington tidal records have been harmonically analysed for the year 1909, and the tides predicted for the year 1912. The tide-tables have been supplied to the Marine Department for publication in the " New Zealand Nautical Almanac," and to the Hydrographer to the Admiralty for publication in the " British Admiralty Tide Tables." A full description of the met hodsand processes adopted is given in Appendix V. Mr. T. G. Gillespie and Mr. J. J. Hay have assisted in carrying out these calculations in a satisfactory manner.