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being also Crown-grant draughtsman), all being required to keep pace with incoming urgent work. Titles : The plans placed on instruments of title of all kinds were 1,485, and 577 copies of leases and licenses were prepared, all by the office staff. Compilations : For photo-lithography 12 large drawings and tracings were prepared. The new survey-district lithos of Mapara and Tangitu were also completed, while those of Ohura, Heao, and Mahoe were sent for and brought up to date. The Rangi and Piopiotea West districts will soon be completed, when we shall be in a position to issue proper county maps of Ohura, Waitomo, and Whangamomona, all of which are urgently required by other Departments and the public. Miscellaneous : The usual demands made on the office staff were attended to, comprising the supplying of information to the general public; tracings for Rangers and selectors, and diagrams and tracings to illustrate letters to Head Office, and others; also numerous tracings for Proclamation purposes and taking roads under the Native Land Act. Over 45 complete sets of field data, averaging more than three to the set, were supplied checked to the staff and contract surveyors, while 198 tracings of West Coast Settlement Reserves leases were furnished to the Public Trust Office for revaluation purposes. For the Valuer-General 161 tracings were prepared, 84 of Land Transfer plans and 77 of Native blocks, while the total of the other miscellaneous tracings mentioned above amounted to 198. All recording on existing block-sheets, Crown grant, 40---chain record maps, reserve, index, and wall maps was kept well up to date, but I had no one to spare to prepare the many new maps that are urgently required. Native .Land Court work : Two hundred and ten plans have been endorsed for attachment to Native Land Court, orders by the Native Land Draughtsmen, and forwarded to the Registrar, covering an area of 44,043 acres; and 130 Native Land Court plans have been forwarded for the Court's use. The survey-costs, including cost of the examination of plans and interest due, collected for ordinary Native land surveys, amounted to £550 lis. 3d. Tracings and field data for Native surveys have been prepared. and supplied when asked for. Owing to the isolated position of the New Plymouth office with regard to the Native Land Court officials, solicitors, and surveyors, a great deal of extra correspondence and supply of data is required from this office, the outward correspondence relating to Native surveys requiring some 650 letters being drafted. Twenty-one vouchers, covering 92 subdivisions, for payment to surveyors have been prepared in this branch and sent on to the Accountant for checking and payment. Whenever necessary an officer has attended the sittings of the Native Land Court for the purpose of collecting survey fees, obtaining charging-orders, &C, and the usual detail work rendered necessary has been carried out. Proposed, Operations for 1916—16. — A staff of three permanent surveyors, with one cadet and one temporal')- surveyor, are at present engaged upon settlement surveys along the eastern, north-eastern, and north-western boundaries of this land district, and by the end of next year I expect to have the northern end of the district cleaned up. The total area to be covered by these operations amounts to 56,000 acres, of which some 11,000 acres and 20 miles of access road through Native land are completed in the field and partly mapped, leaving 35,000 acres of new country on hand for the coming season 1915-16, situated in the Survey Districts of Aria, Totoro, Mimi, Waro, Pahi, Tangitu, Rangi. and Pouatu ; and the cadet above mentioned having now passed, it is proposed to allot him an additional 10,000 acres in the Waro Block, explored by Mr. Larkin but left unfinished by him. Changes of Staff. —Tn August last, two cadets—one field and one draughting (Messrs. Hancock and Hudson) —joined the Expeditionary Force, and we now expect to lose Mr. Saxton (keeper of the safe) in July on superannuation. Mi. Laing, District, Surveyor, retired from the field last May, and joined the office staff in lieu of Mr. W. F. Gordon, who retired on pension; whilst Mr. Larkin resigned and left the Department in June. Early in February Mr. Carrington, Chief Computer, was sent to Napier as Acting Chief Draughtsman there; Mr. Laing took over his work here, and we have been short-handed ever since. Although there has been a falling-off lately in the Land Transfer and Native work, which latter must decrease from now, we are shortly expecting quantities of complicated railway land plans from the four contracts now under survey; there will also be some amount of work with the subdivisions of the valuable West Coast Settlement Reserves, and T am therefore of opinion that the draughting and computing staff wants strengthening. This, though a small, is a very busy and valuable district. Although in most parts a fairly dry season, my surveyors in Mimi, Waro, and Pouatu Survey Districts have had very heavy rainfalls. In conclusion, I wish to record my appreciation of the willing and competent assistance rendered by the whole staff. G. H. Bullard, Chief Surveyo-

WELLINGTON. Triangulation, —No work of this class has been undertaken during the past year by this office. Standard Survey.—No work under this heading has been returned, but Mr. J. D. Climie, of Head Office staff, is at present engaged upon some intricate work adjacent to the City of Wellington. There are several localities in which standard ciaverses must soon be made, but no urgency is necessary, and what is to lie done may easily await the convenience of the Department. Topographical Survey. —Field-work and plans of about 90,000 acres of Native land near Taupo were comnleted by Mr, Blake, and should prove of great assistance to the Native Depart-

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