109 T'ransactions.—XMiscellaneous, 
Since then another officer has suggested primary triangulation. * There 
can be no question of its high value when properly executed, as by it alone 
geodetic or globe-form problems can be independently solved; but this 
value must be taken in a purely scientific sense. And the two inferior 
systems, though not claiming to do work in this category, may yet be of 
value otherwise not to be exceeded, being trustworthy within the require- 
ments of Colonial survey operations. 
The cost of primary triangulation is £1 11s. 9d. per square mile, t; 
that of secondary, £1 7s. 9d.t Now, as the area of New Zealand is 102,000 
square miles, the cost of each for the whole Colony respectively will be 
£161,925 and £141,525, or complete, as designed, £303,450. I mention 
the two together, because if primary triangulation be decided on, secondary 
is also absolutely necessary. Taking the experience of the British Islands, 
the time required to complete the same would be 75 years. 8 Thus, were 
the cost alone not sufficient to deter their introduction as a standard, their 
tardiness would. Settlers and land purchasers with their families could 
not wait four or five, not to mention 871, years till placed in possession of 
their homes and title deeds. 
It has certainly been suggested that actual section survey might go on 
in advance of triangulation by setting out the work in “approximate 
meridians,” and substituting ‘‘ rough diagrams" for properly finished plans 
before standard observations are made and reduced. | But as the time 
suggested by the proposer of eight or ten years, under which the observa- 
tions of the primary, secondary, and tertiary triangulations might be reduced, 
appears to me to be much under estimated, I turn to the highest authority 
on these subjects, and under whose charge are the largest trigonometrical 
operations of modern times, Colonel Walker, Superintendent of the Great 
Trigonometrieal Survey of India, under date 1st December, 1870, remarks 
as follows‘! :—'* It is obvious that every operation of a survey must neces- 
sarily be fallible, and therefore that all newly obtained facts of observation 
that are susceptible of being combined with those that have been previously 
acquired are liable to disturb the results which were previously arrived at. 
Every additional base line, and every new chain of triangles, must neces- 
sarily exercise some influence on operations generally, and more particularly 
* Palmer.—N.Z. Parl. papers, 1875, H.I. p. 22. 
1 Average of eleven districts in British India. Markham, 1l. e. page 292. 
1 Major Triangulation of Otago Block, 1857. 
$ Triangulation of British Islands commenced in 1784, and finished in 1874; area 
122,000 square miles 
|| Palnier.—1. e. page 25. 
"i “Great Trigonometrical Survey of India,” Vol. I., Preface. 
