170 



A US TRALASIA ILL US TRA TED. 



in the city, and one of its finest architectural features. 

 From the arcade of the Post Office the eye of the visitor 

 is caught by two of the handsomest structures in Sydney; 

 namely, the Mutual Fire Assurance Company's offices 

 just completed at the corner of Wynyard Street, and 

 the neo-Greek edifice of the Australian Joint Stock Bank 

 at the corner of King Street, with a frontage to George 

 Street. King Street is a little beyond the Post 

 Office, and is a scene of busy traffic, leading up 



GEORGE STREET FROM THE 



PARAPET OF THE 



POST OFFICE. 



as it does to the Court-house, 

 and being also an omnibus 

 route to Woolloomooloo. 

 The high ground on the summit of this 



thoroughfare, on which it is intended to 



4H9k 

 erect some grand public edifice, is at 



JwMKlE 



present occupied by inferior buildings. 



From King Street to Park Street 

 George Street remains very much what 

 it was fifty years ago, but every here and there new 

 shops of modern style are taking the place of the 

 old buildings. At Park Street the ground reaches its 

 greatest elevation, and here stand, side by side, the 

 Town Hall and the Cathedral ; the former being built 

 on the site of an old burying-ground. The Town Hall is 

 an ambitious structure, but altogether too florid in its style 

 of architecture. The Cathedral was planned fifty years ago, 



and is now too small ; but it is a good specimen of perpendicular Gothic, and contrasts 

 not unfavourably with the Italian edifice by its side. They both stand central and 

 dominant in the city the street here having widened out to a hundred and fifty 



