SPECIAL ARTICLE. A SURVEYOR'S DIARY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20630, 20 August 1932, Page 13

SPECIAL ARTICLE. A SURVEYOR'S DIARY.

jjHS OF SOUTHERN RUNS, j | [EXCLUSIVE TO THE I'RESS.J : ■ ur'John Baker, the writer of ( Tintes came to iNew Zealand ! %7and as a cadet in the Can--1 1, qnrvev Office helped in the and es P loring of m "" y i°' "i* then" unknown parts ot the Slouthland Survey staff and & "thirteen years' service tnere 'Surveyorjfay ISSO, Mr Percy temitli. who ' JWbeen appointed Surveyor-Gen--1 eame to Christchurch on his first IJL visit to my department. Mr 'Sjreriow, whom he had succeeded, had J: made' the head of the Land PurUsing Department for buying back from the big station owners to be ijjed cl° scl ' settlement. On May !|r j; held the first large sale at ifiiara of the runs in the southern Vj- 0 j Canterbury, and on June 4tb, jTcfoistchurch, of the runs in the and northern parts of the proIt was first experience of •jil as an auctioneer at big land ; !l, but I got a good deal of credit for the way I had conduciStthem. Ma'—When the Provinces were ' -Mushed in 1875 and the General .lament took over the adnunis-\-tjon.of the land, the runholders fallowed to continue their leases •"n {he old conditions till May, 18S0. I .'jta'XßUS were then revalued (under ; "I,Sand Act of 1877) and the renwere based on the carry ! ng • Hrtcity and position of the station ■ ,;S|fog from 9d to 2s per sheep, and : 4 S to 10s per head of cattle, i/lfejjce the leases ran out again in the runs were let at these ''liiwm sales for periods of seven, Vfmrteen ° r twenty-one years, the foe' heing based on whether the fjaJ waa likely to be needed for : settlement. At this time a i amount of the land was taken th 9 Government for closer settleaunt, hut the majority of the tenants ' 'got tkeii runs again. Sale of Buns. A few paragraphs from the newspper amount of the sale of runs at Tjmura may be quoted: — # At-the- sale of runs to-day (May •"30fS)~ the 'Assembly Boom was well "■pifkei" Arrangements had been r hff Mr Baker to'adjourn to the Drill Shed if the room was not large uoogh, but when the sale opened • tiwe was evidently plenty of room for-bidders and others really interested, and therefore no occasion for a ' procession through the streets to a liigei building. Mr Baker was ap- « jjsttded on mounting the rostrum -1 &r Baker announced that he take £lO bids up to £IOOO, over £IOOO, £2O bids ... As ;'sj3l be seen, the low hill runs were K%tly well competed for, in several the present holders being made Kjffpay stiff, prices, for them, and in Ipffew cases they outbid ... A ■ null hit of fye Old !Thiee Springs pSvyi sold well, and .then the Kutbcrfords were allowed -to, keep Ijieir E country at the upset, 11 no-use bidding |against .the Rutherfords.". Pareora % Station was run up by several bidders " till the price was nearly doubled. The rougher an 4 colder West Mac-[-ienzie runs were left to the present holders at the upset prices. Those on ' the wrong side of the rabbit fence ~ found none to desire them, even at 1 the upset. The sale was conducted in * a very businesslike way. Plenty of Jime was allowed to bidders, yet no time was lost. The whole list was jgone_ through -without, an adjourn- ; '.ment, and at 1.30 p.m. Mr Baker i ..thanked those present for their attendance, and remarked that he thought 'they had had a very good sale. Shooting at Motnnau.

In July I went by train to the 'ffaipara and drove on to the Motunau 'jrtajjkm and had two days' shooting , tbert I cannot remember the number ■ rfgnas, bat I kept a note of the bag. inade 41 hares, 23 pukakis, 3 hag for those days, as shooting yW* Nothing like as good as it had been /jtattjl first arrived in New Zealand. end of this year we lost' our <*o7,good friend, Mr Eobert Campbell, lkeHad been ill for some months. He .mf extraordinarily genial, kindly own worst enemy, and we had made very welcome visitors farming home. He was buried and I went down there to funeral 011 December 11th. Baker's report for the year ?, -p® rtfers at length to the surveys out in the Mt. Cook district, ' surveys in the mountain vSfW&a.' He also stresses the very being done by the office \ these two points he writes: — ; s Brodrick completed the triof the Great Tasman and | 8 up to the base of Mt. F s^es * Under my direel" . as ma< * e a complete survey L -Mueller and Hooker glaciers, u JfjflfeMt'ained the rate at which they | and made numerous ob'f which will be of much i scientific men when visiting f and most interesting > the Southern Alps, r at the Hermitage with the «^ Cae ° n Commissioners, Mr and I went nearly to the Hooker glacier; but camping equipment with jfafni retnrn without getting attainable point. I lm t° try to get to the : comparatively low saddle V Wr^ cov 6r e d near the head of the when he returned later 1? 6^ SOD ' com plete the survey tou ld'not reach the saddle the huge crevasses which fcßcrossable without special ' '• na lural snow ■ having m e ]t e( j a -way. the surveys made of the d Hooker glaciers by Mr of the Great Tasman B. von Leudenfeld, I 8 to construct a highly showing the topodistrict, the courses of Jiers to their terminal 'he positions of the bb, and also of the anging glaciers, and .which the principal M as they are graduOvcr tbe precipitous 'exhibited at the Dun--11 next summer, where, 'ill attract considerable lead, many people to probably some of the fy to be l'ound in the the topography of the : ■■ . ■ IT*"'"' '' ■'

Mt. Hutt, Mt. Somers, and Palmer Ranges, embracing a very large area of some of the roughest sheep country in Canterbury. The completion of the topography of this block of country in time for the lithographs prepared for the late sale of runs was of the greatest assistance in getting these plans out. His trigonometrical plans are not yet finished, but he reports that very fair closures have been obtained with the previous work.

"Mr MeClure has also completed a large area of topographical survey at the head of the Haveloek and Clyde branches of the Rangitatn river also at the sources of the Potts, ' AshInirton, and. Cameron rivers as far ;>s the southernmost branch of the Kakaia. He says: 'I was impeded in the earlier part of the season by bad weather, and during November there was fully 2t't of snow round the camp. In consequence of the previous severe winter and the high altitude of the country, some of it being over '9oooft among the glaciers, there was a certain amount of danger attached to traversing the head waters of the rivers, through avalanches, and later on, through the rivers being in flood, we had to work wet to the waist,continually crossing and recrossing the rivers; in. faet, during'a flood in the Clyde, one of my men was nearly drowned in attempting to cross with the theodolite.' "Office Work.—Since the reduction made in the office staff last year, the whole of the office work, as regards the cheeking and construction of all plans, district, county, and Crown grant record maps, has been supervised by Mr Shanks, Chief Draughtsman. Fifteen hew district plans have been made for the public map room, and were revised and added to. Four new districts have been traced and sent, to "Wellington for photo-litho-graphy; but the principal draughting work done this year- was the construction of four run plans, on a scale of one mile to an inch, showing all the topography, fences, run-boun-daries, etc. These were traced and sent to "Wellington for photo-litho-graphy. This last work was only completed in time to let the public have the use of them for the run sales by the strenuous efforts of several of the draughtsmen, who, for many weeks, had to return to the office after the usual hours and remain nightly till 10 p.m. in order to get_ them finished. Twenty-eight large and forty-one small plans were sent in by the surveyors, most of which have been checked and passed. There were 313, certificates of title or Crown grants of 435 sections of rural, town or suburban land, containing 20,298 acres, prepared. Plans were put on 104 leases in triplicate, involving the drawing of over 300 separate plans on these deeds."

During the ye«jr ISB9 the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors was formed, and Mr Baker was one of the original members. Illegal Timber Cutting. 1890. —In the beginning of 1890 it was reported that sawyers were illegally cutting timber in the forest at the head of Luke Wauaka. This necessitated a visit of investigation, and my friend Captain Temple, an amateur artist, begged to go with. me. We went by railway to Oamaru and up to Otekaike where I left my wife with Mrs Campbell, going on myself with Captain Temple to Kurow. Next day we hired a buggy and a pair of horses and drove to the Benmore station, where we stayed the night, and on to the station on Lake Ohau The following day we drove to Mr Brodrick's camp at the head of tho lake where I had work to inspect. He had by this time finished his surveys of the Mt. Cook glaciers and was making a topographical survey of the Dobson :mrl Hopkins rivers. Having examined the maps X rode with him VP the Hopkins river, an exceedingly attractive ride with lovely views of the adjoining hills. We camped in a horse paddock- at the junction of tho Muxley river w;ith tha Hopkins, where we obtained a most magnificent view of Mt. Fraser and other snowy peaks, and on the n<&t day we rode about two miles further up the river, which is wooded on both sides to the glacier at the head of it. Tho following morning we rode back to Mr Brodrick's camp and shot rabbits, which had now penetrated even into this very wild country. The day after we rode up the Dobson river, but the scenery was not nearly as beautiful as that on the Hopkins. ' / Note. —It was at this time Mr Brodrick discovered the pass over to the West Coast at the head of the Huxley river, which is now called the Brodrick Pass. Many years later he received a letter on this subject from Mr James Healey which may be quoted, as it is of interest as showing that even before Mr Baker made his first exploration up the Hopkins river in 1861, there had been earlier explorers in the field:— " Wyndham, Southland, November 6th, 1909. "Dear Sir, In reading the 'Qtago Witness' of 3rd inst. I came across a paragraph in W. H. S. Boberts's 'Maori Nomenclatures,' relative to yoflr discovery of an old Maori track in 1895, leading from the Hopkins river to the West _ Coast. This information is of great interest to me and the cause of my writing to you, trusting you to excuse the liberty when you read the following explanation. In the early summer of 1860, I, with two companions, started from Hodgkinson's station at Lake Ohau on an exploring expedition up the north-west branch of the Hopkins river. our object being to find a pass through to the West Coast, but after some 10 days'outing we failed to find a pass. We persevered in our journeys until y® reached the head of the Hopkins river, a large s;lacier. J crossed the glacier and climbed a leading ridge of black slate. This ridge led to a summit, but after I had gained an elevation of some 9000 ft I had to return as I had missed my companions, who had gone in some other direction on the opposite side of the -river. We started on our homeward journey and got back safely to Hodgkinson's station in about da?S ' ' JAMES P. HEALEY." (To be Continued.)

Mr Aj-lmer Maude's Civil List pension, recently announced, was stated to be given "in recognition .of _hiß literary work, particularly in interpreting Tolstoy" in England. It _ is worthy of note that at the same time the new Tolstoy Centenary edition, to be complete in twenty-twc volumes, is being published by the Oxford Lniversitv Press.' " . Other names of literary interest in tne list were: Mr Herbert Edward Palmer, m recognition of his poetry (£6O). . Mrs Barbara Moir Bain, in recognition of the services of her husband,'tne late Professor Alexander Bain, LL.D., in tbe promotion of "mental and moral science (£7O). f . . The Rev. David Erwyd Jenkins, M.A : in recognition of his services to ® 8 literature and religious history Mr Arthur [Llewelyn Jones] Machen, in recognition of his literary woi (£100).