SURVEY WORK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9320, 21 August 1908, Page 1

SURVEY WORK.

DEPARTMENTAL COMMENTS. WIDER OPERATIONS REQUIRED. ' [Fkom Oub. Cokrespondknt.j WELLINGTON, August 20. The annual report of the SurveyorGeneral was presented to Parliament to-day. The report states that the demands on the Department have been particularly heavy during the past y-sar. An average number of seventythree on the staff of surveyors have been employed, and it was found necessary to increase the strength by the addition of eight authorised assistants in charge of parties, under the direct suporvision and 'control of a similar number of the staff surveyors. Besides these a number of licensed ■ surveyors were from time to time employed on contract in sectionising Crown lands. Forty-five undertook surveys at schedule rates of Native land and Court orders and mining claims, and many were engaged privately on land transfer surveys. All of these classes of survey come under the scrutiny of the Department, and must receive its approval before the plans become authoritative. The total area operated on during the year was over half a million acres. The report makes reference to the great need of a major triangulation to control the very numerous independent groups of minor work, much of which, owing to the modern appliances and improved methods in measuring in vogue, is of little use other than serving as connecting points insteatd of providing checks on traverse work. The Sur-veyor-General urges that 6pecial provision should be made for this work during .the current year. The (routine work of the Magnetic Observatory at Christchurch has been earned out during the year in a thorough and successful manner. Records of^eighty-seven. earthquakes were obtained by the seismograph. Reference is made to the visits of the British Antarctic expedition and the Carnegie ■ Institute magnetic survey vessel Galilee, and to the scientific expedition. ' that visited the Southern Islands. The hope 1 is expressed that an opportunity may be given to extercl the, obserrations to the Kermadec Islands and possibly to Cook Islands. The importance of provision being made for the detection and determination of movement of the New Zealand coast has been .brpught under notice of ■ late years, but up* to the present no steps appear to have been taken to secure and permanently record reliable information as to existing conditions so as to afford data for the determination at some future time c" slow elevation or subsidence of different parts of the coast line. This knowktUge apart from its scientific interest, *- an important factor in the construction of marine works, ( as was pointed out by the late Mr P. S. Hay Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, in 1903, in a special report on the subject as a preliminary to a more comprehensive scheme in the future, in a wider dis- i tribution of the Department's tide gauges and mean sea level determination. It is the Department's intention to have the zeros of all existing tide gauges in the various ports of the dominion carefully connected to permanent beach marks in secure ■positions on the shore, which can be effected at a very small cost.