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Eevenue received, £431,338 13s. 3d.; deposits received, £84,926 13s. 10d. : total, £516,265 7s. Id. The balances at credit of the various Eeceivers , Deposit Accounts were as follows : Auckland, £2,201 6s. ; New Plymouth, £476 Os. 3d. ; Napier, £187 Os. ; Gisborne, £498 2s. Bd.; Wellington, £987 4s. 6d. ; Blenheim, £1,032 16s. 10d.; Nelson, £731 16s. 10d.; Ahaura, £8 13s. ; Reefton, £48 10s.; Westport, £40 18s. 2d.; Hokitika, £121 18s. Bd. ; Christchurch, £163 13s. 9d. ; Dunedin, £894 14s. sd. ; Invercargill, £1,304 Is. 10d. : total, £8,697 Is. lid. Altogether during the year under review £84,926 13s. 10d. was taken by the various Receivers by the way of deposits with land applications, and placed in the deposit accounts; land under the land-for-settlement tenure being responsible for four-fifths of it, nine improved estates having been brought under the Land for Settlements Act during the year. During the year I inspected and audited the books of the following district offices : Napier, Gisborne, Wellington, Auckland, Blenheim, Hokitika, Christchurch, New Plymouth, Invercargill, and Dunedin. As each place was visited I reported at length, and furnished balance-sheets of the Receivers' transactions. The office staff has been kept busily employed upon the usual audit and inspection of the cash-books submitted by the Treasury, and this work is as close up as it is possible to have it. All cards, returns, &c, received are scrutinised, and where it is possible to apply a check it is done. Besides the ordinary audit-work, and in connection therewith, 1,443 queries were sent for answers, 588 memos. written, 416 memos. received, 1,040 Commissioners' returns received, 2,421 new cards received, 53 refund vouchers examined. There has been compiled and prepared for general information a personal and a sectional index —the former under the vowel system—which embraces all live cards from Ist January, 1898. These are being constantly added to and kept up to date. I have much pleasure in again bearing testimony to the diligent and painstaking manner in which the officers of this branch do their respective duties, and would respectfully state that, taking into consideration their long services and responsible work, they are inadequately paid in comparison to others whose duties are simply clerical; therefore I recommend them to your favourable consideration.

BIOG-EAPHY.

ME. STEPHENSON PERCY SMITH, F.R.G.S. Some time previous to the beginning of last year, the Surveyor-General made known his intention to retire from the service on the pension which he was entitled to under "The Civil Service Act, 1866." Although not one of the very first surveyors to practice in New Zealand, Mr. Smith is entitled to rank with the foremost of those pioneers who did the arduous work of getting land ready for settlement, and from these very early times until the present day, his name and personality have been respected and loved by all who have had the good fortune to know him. His early experiences with the New Zealand Maori, his personal intimacy with their great men, Bangatiras and Tohimgas, inspired him with an interest in their ancient rites, customs, and history, and while camped in their country he listened to and noted in their own words their traditions, genealogies, and legends, and from time time he put some of these notes into a form capable of being understood by the unlearned. It was in the North Island that Mr. Smith executed all his surveys, and his field-books, topographical maps, and sketches are beautiful specimens of draughtsmanship, and remain something to be admired and copied by the rising generation of young surveyors. Mr. Smith came to New Zealand with his parents in 1849, his father, John Stephenson Smith, settling at New Plymouth, where he subsequently held the office of Commissioner of Crown Lands. He joined the Provincial Survey Department as a cadet on the 4th February, 1855, Mr. Octavius Carrington being Chief Surveyor, and Mr. C. W. Ligar Surveyor-General of the colony, an office he shortly afterwards resigned in consequence of the new provinces taking over the land and survey administration, when he became Surveyor-General of Victoria. Mr. Smith completed his cadetship in 1857, and was then gazetted an Assistant Surveyor for the Province of Taranaki, and was, with Messrs. C. W. Hursthouse and T. Humphries, engaged in laying out and preparing for settlement the forest country lying inland from New Plymouth. In those days roads and tracks were few and far between, and all survey equipment and stores had to be carried on the men's backs (always Maoris), the surveyors taking their share in this laborious work, frequently suffering considerable hardship. It was in 1857 Mr. Smith formed one of a party of five young men who made a journey from New Plymouth, by way of the Mokau River, across country to Taupo, thence to Rotomahana and Tarawera and Rotorua, and back to Taranaki by way of Taupo, Rangitikei, Whanganui and the coast. Much of this country was then unknown, and the only white people seen from Taranaki to Rangitikei, were the missionary families at Mokau (Rev. Mr. Schnackenberg), Taupo (Rev. Mr. Grace), andTarawera (Rev. Mr. Spencer). Mr. Swainson was the outlying settler on the Rangitikei River between what is now Marton and Hunterville, neither of which places had any existence in those days. In 1859, on the recommendation of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Donald McLean, Mr. Smith was appointed by Governor Gore Browne a surveyer attached to the Native Land Purchase Department,

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