52 



AUSTRALIAN PICTURES. 



and the Melbourne University is near at hand. This institution, beautifully 

 situated and handsomely endowed, grants degrees which are recognised 

 throughout the Empire, and its doors are open to male and to female students 

 alike. Ladies have taken B.A. and M.A. degrees already, and the number 

 of the softer sex entering is on the increase. Not a ladies' school of repute 

 but has its matriculation class. The Town Hall, where 2,000 people can sit 

 to listen to the organ — one of the world's great organs — is not to be passed 

 over. The Botanic Gardens are another show spot. They are well within 

 the civic bounds, and by visiting them you obtain a series of lovely views, 

 and become acquainted with the flora of the Australian continent, for every- 

 thing that can be coaxed to grow here has been provided by the director, 



University, Melbourne. 



Mr. Guilfoyle, with a suitable home. There is a gully for the graceful 

 Gippsland ferns, a spot for the gorgeous Illawarra flame-tree, a guarded 

 receptacle for the great northern nettle-bush, which is here twelve or fifteen 

 feet in height, and which no one would presume to handle. Cycads, palms, 

 and palm lilies represent Queensland in one division ; a mass of foliage of a 

 bright metallic green speaks of New Zealand in another. Of no place is the 

 Melbournite more proud than of the Gardens, which Mr. Guilfoyle has only 

 had in hand about twelve years, but which he has transformed from a waste 

 into a Paradise. 



Melbourne has a grand system of water supply. The river Plenty, a 

 tributary of the Yarra, is dammed twenty miles away, and the huge reservoir 

 when full contains nearly a two years' supply. The reticulation allows of a 



