180 R. T. BAKER AND J. NANGLE. 



On some BUILDING and OENAMENTAL STONES of 

 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



By R. T. Baker, f.l.s., Curator Technological Museum, 



and James N angle, f.r.a.s., Lecturer in Architecture, 



Technical College, Sydney. 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, October 6, 1909.'] 



Of necessity our building stones have occupied a foremost 

 place in the State's architecture since the landing of Captain 

 Phillip at Sydney Cove in 1788, although no paper so far 

 appears to have been read before the Society on the subject. 

 Rev. Tenison-Woods has two papers on the Sandstones — 

 Hawkesbury 1882 and Desert 1888, but these deal exclus- 

 ively with the geological side of these materials, whilst in 

 this paper it is the economics or applied science alone that 

 is more especially touched upon. 



From the exigences of the "first landing" it can readily 

 be understood that building material was the first desider- 

 atum of that time, although of course timber was most 

 probably the first to be laid under tribute, the bush neces- 

 sarily being required to be cleared, but with a plentiful 

 supply of freestone at hand it was not long before the 

 splendid Hawkesbury Sandstone was freely utilised, and 

 from thence onward has filled an important place in our 

 architectural structures. There is one notable survival of 

 those times, viz., the Macquarie obelisk, built in 1818 from 

 Sydney sandstone, and bearing the following inscription: — 



"This obelisk was erected in Macquarie Place, A.D. 1818, to 

 record that all the public roads leading to the interior of the 

 colony are measured from it. 



L. Macquarie, Esq.. Governor." 



