Surveying in West Africa

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XV, 11 April 1903, Page 998

Surveying in West Africa

A NEW ZEALANDER’S IMPRESSIONS.

Mr Marchant, the Surveyor-General, has received some interesting information, through Mr Norman F. Hazard, one of the colonial surveyors engaged by the Imperial Government for service on the Gold Coast. Writing from Kanyconkor, under date of January 18, Mr Haszard says he has found nothing dreadful about the climate but quite the reverse. He has never been in better health and is quite free from aches and pains. Another surveyor in the party suffered from slight temporary indisposition similar to that experienced in New Zealand and a third had had no sickness whatever. At the time of the latest advice from Tarkwa the other members of the New Zealand contingent of the surveyors were quite well. It would appear that colonials can stand climate much better than the average man from the Home Country. Mr Haszard is sorry that he was not upon the Gold Coast two years previously as at that time there was a boom in surveying and mining. The New Zealanders have had much trouble in picking up and connecting with the old surveys. Mr Haszard finds the micrometer theodolite a marvellously accurate instrument. The splendid results attained were considered at first to be due to luck but further experience with the instrument has demonstrated that it can be relied upon. His chronometer has given him great satisfaction and its rate continues splendidly uniform. The writer does not think highly of the mining prospects of the portion of the coast where he is working, but hears that there is a great development going on in Ashanti. About £100,0(10 has been spent upon one property since 1895, and the returns therefrom are not yet satisfactory. If more surveyors are required from New Zealand, Mr Haszard does not think that the climate need frighten them.

It would appear that the work of the New Zealand surveyors has been carlied out at a profit to the Government, though prior to their advent the deposit fees did not suffice to defray the actual cost, which is greatly enhanced by the fact that cutting is much heavier than in New Zealand, and timber is nearly all as hard as black maire. New Zealanders speak highly of their treatment by Major Watherston (officer in charge of the Gold Coast surveys) and by the Imperial Government.