45 2 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



the more important of the public buildings of Melbourne ; embracing St. Francis' 

 Cathedral, the Wesleyan, Congregational and Scotch Churches, the Public Library and 

 Museum, the General Post Office and the Town Hall ; and on the high ridge in the 

 middle distance the Exhibition Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the Houses of 

 Parliament ; while beyond the green heights of Studley Park Kew, Hawthorn and 

 Camberwell have for their background the dark mass of the Dandenong Ranges. 

 Southward the eye is carried past the watch-tower of the Fire Brigade, and ranges over 

 the Protestant Cathedral, the windings of the River Yarra, the undulating uplands 

 covered by the suburbs of South Yarra and Toorak, Government House and the fair 

 Domain by which it is surrounded, the Botanical Gardens, the Observatory, the Fawkner 

 and Albert Parks, St. Kilda, South Melbourne, Avith the campanile of its Town Hall 

 rising high above the neighbouring buildings, the Bay, stretching away to the dimly- 

 defined horizon, and Port Melbourne, leading the vision round to the western outlook. 

 This comprehends the Lower Yarra and the harbour improvements, Williamstown and 

 the shipping at its moorings, the suburbs of Newport, Footscray, Kensington and the 

 Race-course, with the You Yangs in the far distance. In the foreground are enormous 

 wool warehouses and equally enormous breweries, iron-foundries resounding with the 

 clang of hammers, monumental chimneys vomiting clouds of black smoke, and acres 

 upon acres of corrugated iron roofs covering the platforms, engine-sheds, workshops and 

 other appurtenances of the Spencer Street Railway Station. To the northward the eye 

 takes in Hotham, Flemington and Carlton ; with the Melbourne University, the Wilson 

 Hall and Ormond College as the chief architectural features of the prospect, which is 

 agreeably diversified by the bosky verdure of the Flagstaff Gardens and the old 

 Cemetery, with the Royal Park beyond, and Mount Macedon closing in the view in one 

 direction, as the Plenty Ranges bound it in another. 



Looking down from this elevation upon the Railway Terminus in Spencer Street, the 

 spectator is struck by the magnitude of the area -which it covers, and the mean, fragile 

 and unworthy character of the Station buildings and their adjuncts. Considering that a 

 traffic of fifteen hundred miles bringing in a revenue of two million sterling, accruing 

 from the annual transport of thirty million passengers, and of upwards of two million 

 tons of merchandise and live stock has to be administered from this centre, the 

 stranger is disposed to censure the Government of Victoria for permitting the continued 

 existence of such a discreditable eye-sore. Plans have, however, been prepared and 

 approved for the erection of a block of buildings ninety feet high, with a frontage of 

 four hundred and twenty feet to Spencer Street, and the work is now in course of 



ution. It will cost one hundred thousand pounds sterling, but it will contain one 

 hundred and fifty-six apartments, and will provide accommodation for the whole of the 

 offices of the Department. The edifice is in the Italian style, of brick faced with stucco, 

 with a rusticated basement and first floor ; the two upper storeys to be enriched with 

 Doric and Corinthian pilasters; a mansard roof is to be carried to a considerable height 

 above an effectively-treated cornice and balustraded parapet. 



The execution of this design is arrested for the present by the discussions which 

 have arisen with respect to the extension of the city westward ; some of the schemes 

 projected for such a purpose involving the transfer of the terminus to another locality, 



