SURVEYING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15926, 11 May 1912, Page 13

SURVEYING.

AN IMPORTANT CONFERENCE

QUESTIONS OF PUBLIC INTEREST

Mr James Mackenzie, brother of the Prime Minister and Surveyor-General of. New Zealand, passed through Christ - c! ch yesterday morning, on his way south. He will go on to Melbourne, to represent New Zealand at the conference of surveyors-geueral of the Commonwealth, which will bo opened in Melbourne on May 20. Mr C. E: Adams, Government Astronomer, also arrived from the north yesterday, and he will accompany Mr Mackenzie to Australia. In the course o'f a brief chat .with a reporter last evening Air Adams outlined the objects of the conference. Mr Afackenzie, lie said, was to bo the New Zealand representative, of course,, and lie himself was only a second string, so to speak, although he had some inquiries to make in his own department- in Australia. The conference was called by the Federal Department of Homo Affairs and was strictly speaking an Australian gathering, hutmatters of moment to New Zealand and questions of reciprocity were to be discussed, and New Zealand had been invited to send a- representative. Air Adams said that he esteemed it a spocial privilege to be associated with the Surveyor-General in this way,' because the mission was an important ono and because Air Alaokcnzie was a*n enthusiast in his subjects, a keen practical man, who would overlook no point likely to be of value. The, order paper for the conference, Mr-Adams continued, contained a number of items of particular interest to New Zealand: The first question for discussion was the geodetic survey ot Anstrahn. Nothing in the shape or a. thorough and comprehensive surveyor the great continent had so far been carried out-. Apart from the immediate practical value of a complete and exact survey, there was every' likelihood that the work now contemplated would have a special scientific importance. Australia, was an ideal country for making such base-line mcasuiements as were needed for computing the precise shape of* the earth. Measurements taken in different countries, singularly enough, gave different results. suggesting that the shape of the world was by no means regular, and Australia could provide an excellent north and south line or an east and west- lino as a-basis of supplementary world-measurements. The second item, the revision of the map of Australia, was of domestic interest purely. The third, however, was the question whether Australia should participate in the world-wide scheme for the preparation of maps of tne whole earth-surface on' a uniform scale of 1 to 1,000,000. Lately a big conference, held in London, at whicn most of the civilised countries were represented, had adopted a scheme, for trio compilation of a man of the world on that scale. The proposal was that each country should prepare its own maps, handy in the size of the sheets and uniform in such matters as style of printing, convent item 1 signs and „so tortli. ’ The scale; was approximately 16 miles to the inch. It was a splendid idea, and ho had no doubt that Australia and New Zealand would gladly participate. ' The fourth question was concerned with reciprocity in flic matter - of surveyors’ licenses. •Already there was an agreement among the surveyors own organisations by which virtual reciprocity was in vogue. Each of the seven institutes in Australia-and .New Zealand, for example, sc-t the examination papers for the whole cv .-.uisti-nl-asin, the institutes holding rneu iccal examinations of •’candidates simu.iaiieously on these papers. This mea#t that a surveyor admitted in any part of Australasia- was accepted as only qualified in anv other part. The present proposal was really to give Gov--eminent fnrthonty to n- system t-lmt had be oil in rorcv 4 1995. On the fifth subject, the Commonwealth Laud Titles' Office, Air Adams anticipated that Mr Mackenzie would he able to give the Australian representatives- inert valuable assistance, for the New Zealand Land Transfer Actwas quoted all oyer the world to-day at a model of whet such a law should be. The «i>.ih .question was concerned with the uniformity of surveyors’ plans, and declarations, a. matter of rather technical interest- . and the other items —the question of the (Mates carrying out surveys for the Federal Government. and the nomenclature of Australian placet*--were again of domestic interest only. Tn New Zealand Air Adams added, they followed the Royal Geographical Society s system of spelling native names phonetically, giving the vowels the Italian values. In Australia, on the other hand, such a name as Bondi might- he called “Bondai ” or “ Bondee,” and it was highly do.-imhlc tbM. noonio who wore notAustralians should have some guide to the pronunciation. The conference sr>l! he opened in i

I Melbourne on May 20 and the delegates will . subsequently visit the I Federal Genital site at Yass-Can-* i berra.