THE CITY OF MELBOURNE. 443 



rouge-royal marble. The principal entrance is in a curve at the angle of the building. 



Beyond Queen Street on the south side is the London Chartered Bank, a structure 

 of an impressively substantial character ; and nearly opposite to it is the Bank of 

 Australasia, massive in appearance and solid in construction, the lower storey broken up 

 by rusticated piers, supporting a Doric cornice, above which are the pilasters carrying 

 the main cornice and parapet. The internal decorations of the banking chamber are 

 rich in colour and thoroughly artistic in design. To the westward of this edifice is a 

 cluster of fire insurance and life assurance offices, possessing architectural features which 

 render them an ornament to what promises to become one of the finest streets in the 

 Southern Hemisphere. Nor will the visitor fail to be struck by the magnitude and 

 grandiose elevation of the immense edifice erected by the New Zealand Loan and 

 Mercantile Agency Company.. This has been built in the Italian style, and covers nearly 

 an acre of ground. The basement and the first storey are faced with dressed bluestone, 

 and the four floors above with Oamaru freestone ; the general effect being exceedingly 

 massive and imposing. Scarcely less striking is the lofty pile which has received the 

 name of Robb's Buildings. But both are overshadowed as regards altitude by the high- 

 soaring and elaborate structure which owes its existence to the enterprise of the 

 Federal Coffee Palace Company. 



Retracing his steps to the eastward, and glancing at the handsome facade of the 

 Australian Club in William Street as he crosses that thoroughfare, the stranger will find 

 his attention attracted upon reaching Queen Street by the newly-erected bank of the 

 English, Scottish and Australian Corporation, partly on account of the novelty of its 

 style, and partly because of the almost vivid colour of the Sydney freestone employed in 

 its construction. The style is essentially and purely Gothic, of the geometrical period, 

 and as the Building Act in force in Melbourne prohibits projections from the wall, 

 beyond a very small limit, the architect has succeeded in avoiding flatness of effect by 

 the introduction on the western front of recessed loggic similar to those which are to 

 be met with in so many Venetian palaces and by balconies on the southern face. The 

 loggic in the former are contrived by the outer wall being carried on a richly traceried 

 arcade with polished granite columns, while the back walls of the recesses are faced with 

 glazed tiles of a blue tint. At the angle of the building is a turret, springing from a 

 groined corbel, and terminating in a spire thirty-five feet above the roof. The edifice is 

 three storeys high, irrespective of the basement ; and the ground-floor is mainly occupied 

 by the banking chamber, which has an area of sixty-seven by fifty-seven feet, and is 

 thirty feet in height. In one respect it is believed to be almost unique, inasmuch as 

 the architect has followed that canon of art which prescribes that decoration should 

 grow out of and be subservient to construction, instead of constructing for decoration. 



A few yards beyond the bank just described is the Bank of New South Wales. The 

 style adopted by the architects is the Italo-Vitruvian, and the building pleases the eye 

 by symmetry of form and harmony of proportion. The fa9ade consists of three divisions 

 and two storeys. Four Doric columns, resting on a balustraded base, support an 

 enriched frieze, the columns above are Corinthian, and the frieze over them is of an 

 ornate character, somewhat resembling that of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome, 

 consisting of festoons of fruits and flowers sustained by amorctti. These were carved by 



