45 8 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



value, either on account of their rarity or of their costly character. Open from nine in 

 the morning until ten in the evening, and illuminated after dark by the electric light, 

 the Library is extremely popular as a place of resort, although it is to be feared a not 

 inconsiderable number of its frequenters use it as a lounge, and amuse themselves by 

 rrading works of a frivolous character only. In a rotunda on the ground floor is a 

 newspaper room containing files of most of the Australasian papers, and this is also 

 largely frequented. To the right and left of an entrance hall fifty feet square are the 

 galleries of sculpture, containing casts from the masterpieces of Grecian and Roman 

 plastic art, and a small collection of marble statues and busts by contemporary or recent 

 sculptors. Under the Barry Hall is what has been termed the South Kensington division 

 of the Museum. Independently of a large assemblage of objects of an ethnotypical 

 character, it includes specimens of glass and ceramic ware, ivory and wood carvings, 

 bronzes, enamels and metal work, of different countries and different epochs, illustrative 

 of the history of the arts as applied to the higher branches of industry. Out of this 

 part of the building the visitor passes into the Technological Museum, filling the whole 

 of a spacious but temporary edifice, erected, together with some annexes now used as 

 schools of drawing and painting, in connection with the first Intercolonial Exhibition 

 held in Melbourne in the year 1866. A make-shift vestibule, hung with engravings, 

 photographs and drawings, conducts the visitor to the Picture Gallery, which measures 

 one hundred and sixty-five feet long by forty feet wide, with a height of thirty feet to 

 the cornice ; in this is contained a collection of oil paintings and water-colour drawings 

 by modern artists belonging to the English, French, German, Belgian and Italian schools. 

 The National Gallery and the School of Painting connected with it were under the 

 direction of the late Mr. G. F. Folingsby ; and a students' exhibition is held yearly, at 

 which prizes of the aggregate value of one hundred pounds sterling are distributed, and 



* 



a gold medal is awarded once in three years to the student most worthy of it. This 

 carries a travelling scholarship of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, tenable for 

 three years, conditionally on the holder proceeding to Europe and pursuing his studies in 

 one of the great art schools of the Continent. Besides the oil paintings and water-colour 

 drawings just referred to, the National Gallery contains a very large collection of photo- 

 graphs, photo-lithographs and engravings, including some curious views of early Melbourne. 

 On an adjoining block of land, having the same dimensions as that upon which the 

 last-named institution stands, was erected in the year 1846 the small structure out of 

 which has grown by gradual accretion the Melbourne Hospital, containing now upwards 

 of twenty wards and three hundred beds. About four thousand patients are treated as 

 inmates every year, and from four to five times that number of out-patients are annually 

 furnished with medicine and advice, at a total cost of twenty-five thousand pounds 

 sterling per annum. From an architectural point of view, the building is plain to ugli- 

 ness. It consists of a main body, two detached pavilions and some extensive out-offices 

 in the rear. The entrance is from Lonsdale Street, and an area of something like an 

 acre, skirting that thoroughfare, is laid out in lawns and walks and planted with trees, 

 under which, during the summer months, such of the patients as are approaching 

 convalescence enjoy the warmth and freshness of the air. But the place is so hemmed 

 in by houses, workshops and factories, that the removal of the institution to some 



