984 "Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
Of Taranaki, Major Palmer says, ** The old work is valueless for further 
use; many of the field-books are missing, and for miles together no original 
survey marks can be found.” And it appears that, of a total of 2,187,000 
acres, 10,000 only are correctly section-surveyed ; 180,000 are section- 
surveyed, but need revision; and 1,997,000 acres are practically unsur- 
veyed. 
Passing to the South Island, we find the same confusion to exist in the 
surveys of Nelson and Marlborough; and Major Palmer says, after point- 
ing out the wretched condition of things in the former Province, that ** most 
fortunately, whether from indifference, or despair, or fear of expense on the 
part of landowners, no serious legal difficulties had yet resulted." Major 
Palmer was doubtless unaware that several expensive lawsuits had already 
taken place in that Province with reference to disputed boundaries, and that 
nothing short of the impossibility of procuring any proper definition of 
boundaries had prevented further litigation ; landowners preferring, in many 
cases, to submit to considerable encroachments rather than plunge into liti- 
gation the issues of which were doubtful. Of Canterbury, Major Palmer 
says :— 
** While in Auckland and some other Provinces one chief cause of the 
difficulties which beset the early land sales under the principle of selection 
before section survey was that they often had absolutely no topographical 
map with any pretension to accuracy as a basis to work upon; in Canter- 
bury, on the other hand, we have the case of large areas having been tri- 
angulated and topographieally mapped for purposes of land selection, with 
a certain show of accuracy, yet so carelessly, in reality, that but little good 
was gained ; error and confusion of the usual types were introduced at the 
very outset, in spite of a large expenditure of money, and have never since 
been thoroughly eradicated.” 
After pointing out the nature and extent of the errors he refers to, 
and the evils which necessarily flow from original bad surveys, and other 
causes affecting the accuracy of Crown grants, he adds that ** puzzling 
questions of disputed or defective title, and of overlaps and surplusage are 
for ever eropping up for decision by the Crown Commissioners, or the 
Registrar-General of land, and that Government incurs the risk of having 
to pay large sums of money as compensation for erroneous grants." 
Coming to Otago Major Palmer remarks that fortunately for that 
Province its chief surveyor had not been cramped in means for carrying on 
the work under his control, and he tells us that Mr. Thomson established, in 
1861, a uniform system of surveying, which, if not highly scientific or 
serupulously exact, was simple and practical, and not likely to introduce 
inordinate errors or distortions. He then proceeds to give a sketch of this 
