Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/191

 if by magic, providing for the wants of the fast increasing population of the country. Education has dispelled the mystery by which ignorance and neglect had hitherto, in a great measure, cramped the exertions of the agriculturist; farming is now a profession and calling that is really studied, and everything that art and science can do to increase the knowledge of this most pleasing as well as natural occupation seems now to occupy the serious attention of the Government. We see, also, that in the formation of the many towns which yearly arise amidst the hitherto unfrequented solitudes of Victoria, that a certain degree of elegance and art is attended to, not only in the minor matter of the laying out of streets, but in the formation of public buildings, and construction of bridges, ways, and wharfs, and in the primary choice of locality.

In Melbourne and Geelong no expense is spared by their wealthy communities, by votes of large sums, towards beautifying those two very fine cities. As one example from a hundred, we may mention, that within one year a fine building, equal perhaps to any in Europe, has reared its rich porticoed dome amid the princely streets of West-end Melbourne.

In the erection of the Council Chambers of the Victoria Parliament more than 1000 artificers have been engaged; and to complete them in a style becoming to Victoria, every nation of Europe has been ransacked, by offers of the most liberal terms, for designs the most elegant, and contractors the most skilled