46 District of the Province of Quebec ; authorizing and requiring you to execute and perform the office of a Deputy Surveyor , agreeable to the orders and instructions hereunto annexed, or to be annexed, by his Excellency the Governor or Commander -in- Chief , or from the Courts of Judicature, or from me, or from the Deputy Surveyor- General of this Province, hold, exercise and enjoy the same during pleasure, together with the fees and advantages thereunto belonging or appertaining; and you are to make your surveys agreeable to the justice and the rules of the science of surveying. Enregistered in the Register of Detroit , page 59, by me. WM . MONFORTON, Recorder. Given under my hand and seal at Quebec , this twenty-second day of December, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four. (Signed) SAMUEL HOLLAND . I, Philip Frey , do solemnly swear on the holy Evangelists of the Almighty God that I will act impartially and do justice between man and man, as far as my knowledge doth extend in the science of surveying. Detroit , 30th March, 1785. Before me, date as above. ALEX . MACOMB, C.P. Enregistered in the Register of Detroit , page 69, bv me. WM . MONFORTON, Recorder. (Signed) PHILIP R. FREY , Deputy Surveyor for the of the Province of Quebec . The first English ordinance respecting surveying in Canada was promulgated in 1785. Its provisions were as follows:— (1) The establishment of a meridian in the presence of the Surveyor- General or his Deputy. (2) The examination of a surveyor before being appointed. (3) An obligation to take the oath of allegiance. (4) The surveys made before 1780 not to be disturbed. (5) All surveyors to keep field-notes. (6) Upon the death of a surveyor, his notes were to become public; and to be filed with the Court of Common Pleas of the District. In the same year, by a second edict, surveyors were debarred from acting as notaries and notaries from acting as surveyors. This ordinance remained in force until 1819, and is the basis of our existing Surveys Acts, and the Act respecting Land Surveyors . On 22nd January, 1785, the Major reports having employed three draughts¬ men to help along the work, at one dollar a day each— Mr. Tuffe and his sons Jack and Henry, "whom I check a shilling for every hour they neglect." The following letters and extracts from official documents are of interest:— Near Quebec , 19th January, 1785. Dear Sir:—You will see from the joined instructions that I have appointed you for and Detroit , as the business in our Department, at the place of your abode, is for the present but little, and would not afford the fixed allowance of 4r. N ..C per day. I thought best to name you for both places, to which you will, I hope, agree to, as, at your presence shall be much wanting in laying out of lots. As I had no time to make out copies of your instructions for the commanding officer, you must make out two, and transmit them as soon as possible. Your theodolite, I shall send by the first opportunity to your friend Mr. MacKeown , at , who has promised me to send it up to you by the first batteaux. Mr. Jenkin William, our solicitor and clerk of Council, is arrived last night, by the way of New York from London. I received several letters by him, among others one from William Smith , Esq., late Chief Justice of New York , and now appointed in that capacity in this Province. He tells me he will come out next spring with our Viceroy Sir Guy Carleton ; he thinks that