565
13
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Appendix No. 2.
REPORT ON THE SURVEY OF THE NEW TERRITORY, AT THE CLOSE OF THE FIELD SEASON OF
1900-01-15TH JULY, 1901.
1. The Topographical Survey of the New Territory has been completed, and about 500 square miles including islands has been mapped on the scale of 1 inch to a mile. The nature of the country is broken and mountainous, and the greater part is some of the most difficult country to survey that I have ever seen.
2. The Triangulation on which the mapping has been based is also completed. Details have been given in my previous reports, which it is useless to repeat here. A memorandum on the marking of stations visited in the course of the Triangulation is attached as an Appendix.
3. The Cadastral Surveys are in progress, and will probably not be completed for another two years to come. I give, briefly, the results obtained :----
(i.) In 1899-1900 an area was surveyed, on the scale of 16 inch to a mile, of 41,000 acres.
(i.) In 1900-01 the outturn has amounted to an area, on the scale of 32 inches-1 mile, of 8,638 acres containing 134,166 fields, the average size of each of the latter being .06 of an acre and about a third part of a mu. A further small area of 650 acres has been surveyed on the scale of 16 inches1 mile; and re-survey was necessary of one block rejected at the close of the Season of 1899-1900, which amounted to about 200
acres.
4. Adding those figures, we obtain a total of 9,488 acres, or, say, in round numbers, of 9,500 acres as the result of the Cadastral Survey operations in the past Field Season: and the great decrease in the outturn is chiefly due to the system adopted of carrying on the demarcation of holdings pari passu with that of the Survey. But if the purposes of the Rent Roll are served by working on these lines, the system must be continued-as I have shewn in a previous report-and if the Land Court finds that it suits them to have the maps made and the titles of holdings registered at one and the same time, there is no other course open than to continue working on these lines. Indian experience does not help one very much, as the conditions are so very different in the New Territory, and it is better and safer, in the absence of all previous information such as a summary settlement, would provide, to work slowly, establishing every step taken in the preparation of the Rent Roll, with the map of individual holdings at hand for purposes of reference.
5. The traverses, upon which the Cadastral Surveys are made, have been advanced very far ahead of the Detail Surveys; and probably less than a fifth, and even a sixth, of the New Territory has been not yet traversed. The portions of the mainland where no traverses have been run, are that narrow peninsula which separates Mirs Bay from Junk Bay, and whose southern extremity forms the northern limit of the Fut-i-mun Pass, or outlet into the open sea, the valleys which lie at the heads of Tsin Wàn and Gin Drinkers Bay, the southern slopes of Taimoshan, and the Shing Mun Valley, and the valley of Lam-Kwat-An. On the Lantau Island the cultivated areas round Tung Chung have been surveyed and also in the vicinity of Mui-wo. The other cultivated areas on this island have not yet been prepared by means of traverses for the Detail Survey for cadastral purposes.
During the forthcoming winter the traverse operations should be completed, they should be commenced about the 1st of October, and the end of the Field Season should see them completed and the stations marked.
The country that will be dealt with in the forthcoming Season and the one to follow, is the most broken and rugged part of the New Territory. The only open portions are insignificant and will be taken up in a few blocks each, they lie at the head of Tide Cove and Tsin Wan, and Gin Drinkers Bay, and along the south coast of Lantau; the remainder is mountainous and difficult.
HONGKONG, 21st July, 1901.
GEO. P. TATE,
Survey of India Department,
in charge Kowloon Survey Department.