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HEAD OFFICE. During the past year the correspondence and business of the head office has been in excess of that of previous years. The letters and papers dealt with were 11,228. The vouchers charged against appropriations were 9,519, of which 600 were for services chargeable to this office. The total expenditure of the department was £121,161 14s. 2d., of which £9,720 was distributed by local bodies by 43 separate agreements. The construction of district maps has proceeded slowly, only 10 having been made during the year. New maps of Canterbury and Otago, on the scale of 4 miles to an inch, have been drawn for photolithography, and will be published during the year, on the 8-mile scale, uniform Avith that of Nelson, published in 1885. Of the four tourist maps, 33,000 copies have been printed in English and 12,000 copies in French. They have been widely distributed over the world through Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son, the Union Steamship Company, the Agent-General; and an edition was taken by M. le Comte de Jouffroy d'Abbans, for distribution in the Paris Exhibition. The number of negatives taken during the year was 722. Prom these were printed 87 copies in silver. The photolithographs and lithographs printed amount to 620,170 impressions, from 987 stones. Three boxes containing 127 transparencies for lantern exhibition at Home were prepared. The litho-printing office has found batter quarters in the rooms vacated by Mr. Didsbury; and another machine to print sheets 37in. by 52in. has just been erected. A. Barron, Superintendent.