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Auckland , 1 extending the rows of its houses along the charming 
shores of the Waitemata on the Northside of the isthmus, will 
prosper and flourish, and secure its rank as a metropolis of the North 
Island, even after the seat of Government is removed to Wel- 
lington, and the centre of gravity of the colonial development 
seams to shift more and more from North to South. 
In the year 1800, Auckland numbered 10,000 inhabitants, 
and probably to the same number amounts the population of the 
Auckland district. Though the city with its mostly timber-built 
houses has not quite lost all traces of its late origin; yet it con- 
tinues to improve from year to year by the construction of large 
stone-buildings from the porous basalt-lava (“scorke-stone”) of the 
surrounding volcanic cones , yielding an excellent building material. 
The circumference of the town and suburbs , planned on a large 
scale, is at present already a considerable one. From East to 
West, including the suburbs, Auckland has a frontage on the water 
of a mile and a-half and extends from North to South to the dis- 
tance of about one mile. The centre of the city is situated on a ridge, 
between Mechanics’ Bay East and Commercial Bay West, shelving 
oft* abruptly to the harbour at Britomart Point. Upon this central 
ridge, on the extremity of the head land, Britomart Fort and 
Barracks are built, next the Metropolitan Church of St. Paul, the 
rows of houses in Princes’ Street, the Governor’s Mansion, the 
Albert Barracks , and overlooking town and harbour the Windmill is 
seen with Mount Eden in the back ground. East of this central 
line, round about Official and Mechanics’ Bay, are the Government 
buildings and oftices, and the detached cottage-like houses of mili- 
tary and civil officers, of clergymen and missionaries; West of it 
on Commercial Bay is the mercantile quarter , forming a mass of 
houses closely packed together. Freeman’s Bay, to the westward 
of Commercial Bay, is occupied chiefly by saw-pits, brick-kilns, 
and boat-builders’ yards. The site of the city, the variously jut- 
ting hills, and the intervening bays remind us of Sydney with its 
“coves.” The Harbour of Auckland being very shallow on the 
1 To its position Auckland owes the surname: ^Corinth of the South.” 
