43 8 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



the Athensum Club, most of the members of which belong to the professional and 

 mercantile classes of the community. It is chiefly resorted to at midday and in the 

 afternoon, but participates after sunset in the quietude which falls upon the whole of 

 Collins Street, both East and West, during the hours of evening. Indeed, the contrast 

 is remarkable between the liveliness of this busy thoroughfare throughout the business 

 portion of the day, and its desertion and solitude so soon afterwards. 



The offices of the Australian Deposit and Mortgage Bank and of the Melbourne 

 Permanent Building Society offer no special architectural features to invite description ; 

 but the National Bank, adjoining the latter, must be pointed out as an excellent 

 example of the successful application of the Classic style to a secular edifice. It 

 combines symmetry and harmony of proportion with simplicity and strength, and has a 

 general air of solidity befitting one of the leading banks of a city in which business of 

 this kind is conducted upon such safe and sound principles as fully entitle the great 

 money-lending financial institutions of Melbourne to the confidence they enjoy. The stylo- 

 bate is of massive wrought bluestone, upon which stand four pairs of coupled columns 

 of the Doric order. A balustrade separates this from the upper order, which is Corin- 

 thian. This, with its carved capitals and full enrichments, produces a handsome effect. 

 The doorway and windows are arched, in accordance with Roman methods of adapting 

 Greek orders, and are sufficiently recessed to give, in addition to its cornice, the requisite 

 amount of shadow. Ionic shafts have been employed in connection with the recessed 

 windows of the upper storey, and the whole is surmounted by an effectively-treated 

 parapet. In its ensemble the National Bank may be pronounced to be one of the 

 happiest examples of Romano-Greek architecture in Melbourne. The banking chamber is 

 lofty and spacious. It is surmounted by a dome, springing from eight Corinthian 

 columns, carrying the enriched entablature from which it rises. The dome itself is 

 divided into enriched compartments, through which the light is received into the chamber. 



The frontage intervening between the building just described and the City of 

 Melbourne Bank is occupied by three fagades of a handsome character. These assist, by 

 their variety of styles, to diversify the architecture of the street in which the last-named 

 bank forms a very conspicuous object, owing to the cupola of the tower, erected at the 

 north-west angle of the structure, which rises to the height of one hundred and thirteen 

 feet above the pavement. The two faces of the edifice, in Elizabeth and Collins Streets, 

 each exhibit a Corinthian colonnade, resting upon a bluestone base or podium seven feet 

 high, the columns themselves extending to the summit of the first storey, being thirty 

 feet high. Each couple enclose two windows, framed by Doric pillars, the upper ones 

 having arched openings. Above the cornice of the colonnade, two storeys have been 

 superimposed, and these are surmounted by a balustraded parapet, with a small pavilion 

 at each end. The entrance to the banking chamber is at the corner of the street, and 

 has been recessed so as to form a portico ; above which is a semicircular entablature, 

 with a balcony treated in the same manner as the parapet, and an octagonal turret, with 

 three faces exposed, terminating in the cupola. 



The bank occupies the site of the old Clarence Hotel a relic of early Melbourne. 

 Outside of it, under its broad verandah, a sort of al fresco labour-exchange used to 

 establish itself on Saturday mornings, to which contractors, builders and operative masons, 



