Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/958

 782 TJic Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [June, the whole business of life would inevi- tably be brought to a most melancholy stand-still, and the social, political, and intellectual interests of the entire community be struck with sudden death, or most disastrous paralysis. Every General Post Office, in a modern State, or colony, is the diamond point, as it were, upon which the exquisite ma- chinery of civilized life revolves with a rapidity and a precision which has al- most preternaturally quickened the ac- tion of the human mind in all its func- tions ; facilitating a constant and general intercourse between all mem- bers of the commonwealth — an inter- course proved to be the very soul of progress in all those arts that teach men to value life, and subservient to every enterprise for the moral elevation and mental improvement of mankind. To the results of that direct and steady in- tercourse which postal institutions have established, and to the obvious benefits thereby secured, may we not unreason- ably attribute the increased desire for yet further opportunities of intercom- munication, and the glorious triumphs which have been gained in this direc- tion by the agency of the steam-engine and the electric telegraph — the full de- velopment of which, in a social point of view, are still very far from realized. Already those grand discoveries are- made to act in concurrence with postal arrangements, to our great commercial and general advantage, both in this country and in the adjacent colonies. Every fibre of that vast network of in- tercommunication which spreads over Eastern Australia is concentered in this maritime city ; every telegraphic wire has here its ultimate limit, every railroad its practical terminus, every highway its common point of junction. By all of these, as to the living heart of the body, is a constant, healthful, circu- lation kept up ; and the material centre at which those intellectual pulsations are sustained, quickened, and regulated, is manifestly the General Post Office at Sydney. Such an important centre must, it is obvious, be one, in all re- spects suitable to its grand purpose — if all is to go on well — carrying on its mul- tifarious operations in some large build- ing, studiously adapted to every circum- stance incidental to its action. It has been determined that such a building shall be erected, and there is every reason to believe that the General Post Office now being raised in George street, will, on its completion, be found I to be such an edifice. A brief general description of this noble building, and of the present progress of the work will, we should think, be not uninteresting to most of our readers. The foundations of this massive edifice — the total frontage of which, when finished, will be not less than five hun- dred feet — are, of course, of the most substantial and durable character, and were laid upwards of a year ago; that portion of the work being carried out by the late contractor, Mr. A. Loveridge. Upon these foundations the solid and beautiful superstructure (which confers the highest credit upon Mr. Barnett) is now being rapidly erected — with all its elaborate details, and in spite of all its peculiar difficulties — by the present contractor, Mr. John Young, under the anxious and unwearied superintendence of the Colonial Architect. Its entire frontage will be spanned by thirty-five arcade arches. In Pitt street the east- ern front, nearly opposite the Metro- politan Hotel, will extend for seventy feet, and from the north end of that front it will run back for three hundred and fifty-four feet to George street, thus forming the southern side of a new street connecting the two principal thorough- fares of the city. From the western ex- tremity of what (when completed) will be the great north front, the western front, facing George street, Mill extend for seventj'-six feet (as far as Mr. Chisholm's) with an elevation of seventy- five feet from the pathway of the main street up to the topmost cornices. Be-