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seems but reasonable that, if a landowner requires a certificate of title for subdivision of property, or other of his purposes, that he should provide the accurate survey and description of his land. This is stated more as a general principle than the rigid rule observed by the department, for there are circumstances where it is considered but fair that the Government should bear part of the expense; as in Auckland, where a landowner, through certain changes occurring between the time of his mortgaging his land and its reconveyance, was compelled to bring his land under the land-transfer system, although quite content with the old grant, imperfect and inaccurate though it was, as a description of the boundaries of the land. Publication oe Maps. Good progress has been made in the production by photo-lithography of the maps on the scale of one inch to the mile. The great utility of maps on this scale for general public purposes is well known, and the survey districts are being reduced to it, and published as soon as they are sufficiently filled in to make it worth while. Sale maps for runs on a scale of half an inch to the mile, and of Crown lands for settlement to a scale of two and four inches to the mile, have been published as required during the year. The number of copies struck off for each sale varies from 250 to 1,200, according to the importance of the land to be disposed of. In the larger maps the printing has to be done by hand-presses, and where there are several registerings this becomes a very tedio.us and laborious process. As for the smaller maps, they are machined and turned out with great facility. There is nothing to prevent the larger maps being done in the same easy way if we only had the necessary plant, and room to work it in. At present the Government Printer's department and the lithographic branch of the Survey Department are very much in each other's way, there not being sufficient room in the present premises for both. It would be true economy to have the lithographic presses shifted to more roomy quarters, and it is hoped this may be accomplished soon. Erom Mr. Barron's report it will be seen that 396,233 copies of maps and diagrams were printed last year, of which 168,784 were for other departments of Government. Euture Operations—Departmental. Eor the current year the trigonometrical and topographical surveys begun and projected aggregate an area of nearly 4,000 square miles. The greater part of this is in the North Island, where, on account of the numerous applications of the Natives to have negotiable titles to their land, the necessity has arisen for surveys in some of the most inaccessible portions of the Island. In this there is the opportunity of pushing forward the topographical surveys in the localities where otherwise it would be impossible to do so from the innate hostility of the Native mind to the mapping of the country. The applications for " Native Land Court" and "Native Land Purchase" awaiting survey amount to a total of 400,000 acres. The topographical surveys in a great measure supply all the information for investigation of title. The advantage of having this class of survey extended over every available acre of the colony is patent in this and in many other ways. Erom the accumulated information of this class of survey the department was enabled to furnish the public with contour maps of the three million acres of pastoral country, disposed of on lease during the past twelve months. Indeed no other survey was necessary to allot the boundaries of the runs, and the total cost of the original topographical survey, mapping, and publicacation did not reach 2d. an acre. Of settlement surveys there is an area of 670,000 acres on hand, of which nearly 200,000 acres is for survey of lands in Auckland, Canterbury, and Nelson, already sold but not yet surveyed. These arrear surveys are now being disposed of, and by the end of the year should be nearly, if not altogether, completed. There are no arrears in any of the other districts, and the balance of 470,000 acres is the area which is under survey preparatory to the land being offered for sale and settlement, as the various blocks are got ready, and plans of them published.