ConneLL.—On New Zealand Surveys. xiii 
persons possessing no special training which would lend to their opinion 
any weight when given as to the boundaries of land, and the provision 
remains practically a dead letter of the law. Whether this may arise from 
insufficiency in the wording of the clause, from ignorance of its existence, 
or from disinclination to act upon it, I am not aware. It is owing, no 
doubt, very much to errors in survey operations that litigation has been 
unfortunately so much induced of late, but, until a change is made in the 
description of land in the Crown Grants, we cannot, I think, expect that 
even correctness of survey will altogether remove the cause of litigation. 
Two years ago, I was induced to write on this subject owing toa decision 
of the Court of Appeal in the celebrated Blue Spur case. As the dispute 
in that case was concerning the boundaries of auriferous lands of great 
value, the question was tried at great length and at enormous cost; and as 
the views I then expressed affect directly the subject of errors in survey, 
and the best mode of correction of the same, I append to this paper two 
letters which I addressed to the Daily Times, July 23 and 26, 1873, which 
any one interested in this phase of the subject may peruse. 
In conclusion, I would say that I quite agree with Major Palmer as to 
the necessity for placing the survey of the Colony under the direction of an 
able Surveyor-General, and removing as far as possible the conduct of his 
operations from political interference and influence. 
In no other way, so far as I can see, can that uniformity of system 
which is so much to be desired, be obtained, and steady prosecution of 
the work of survey be ensured; but I venture to think, that a uniform 
system of Minor Triangulation sesame carried out, the application of tra- 
verse reductions as a check in all cases to detailed surveys, and a steady 
endeavour to improve the detail survey by every means likely to keep allowed 
error within the smallest possible limits, is what is really so urgently 
required at the present time, and that the initiation of a great Standard 
Triangulation, however desirable on geographical and scientific grounds, 
is no cure whatever for the evils under which many of the Provinces appear 
to be now suffering. 
