PROM AN AUSTRALIAN CORRESPONDENT, The cabled news from Australia that the first prize in the competition for a design for the future Australian city at Canberra has gone to an American architect advances by another stage the busi ness of hunting for a Federal capital which Lord Rosebery has described as the Australian national sport.
The chosen Canberra is a splendid plateau 2,000ft. above sea level, situated a little to the north of the highest peaks of the-Australian Alps, The northern part, consisting of the plateau on which the city will rise, is to-day spacious and pleasing meadow land, generally undulating. Here and there a granite knob usee more or eas sharply, remnant of come old mountain tops long since worn away and scattered in rocky dust. The country is sparsely inhabited and, a¢ the spectator views it from some convenient vantage point (ooking towards the north, for instance; from Mount Stromlo, where the Observatory is to be erected) he sees few signs of what habitation there is. To the right lie the buildings of the Military College at Dun-troon, centred round an old farm homestead and already making quite a hamlet of ite own. Near by are the knobs called Mounts Ainslie and Majura. From them folds fill up the broad valley that stretches over to Black Mountain, another knob on the left, which rises steeply from the plain and stands out in sharp contrast to other features of the northern aspect. The Molonglo River, a placid willow-lined brook, which flows right through the chosen site, disappears from view at the foot of Black Mountain, and further over to the left, where the larger bulk of Mount Core fills in the horizon, it slides into the stream of the Murrumbidgee. In the middle of the view from Mount Stromlo the spectator can distin-guise the little Canberra church and parsonage, and more to the left the Acton homestead and a few other scattered houses. The waterworks from the Cotter will be on the extreme left hand; the railway to Jer vis Bay (seaport and site of the Naval College) and the outer world will run out into the extreme right.
The American Plan.
In the winning American plan the Molonglo River is boldly treated, and the city ie large sheets of water, with parke and boulevards. Immediately facing the central lake, on the southern shore, is the official quarter—Parliament Houses and Government buildings, extending down to the lake front, with streets laid out in octagonal form around them. A fan-shaped residential quarter lies on one side, and on the other are spread in lines following the natural contour the municipal centre, the University, and the industrial centre. The general plan is for radiating streets with connecting crorsways. "The railway is brought at the back through the industrial, business, and market quarters to convenient central point- From the Parliament buildinge as o centre radiate the main thoroughfares, the direct arteries of communication between the outlying parts of the city. Most of the plans from which the final selection was made followed the radial form. The German idea was for what ie described as "a classically-built city," with streets in sweeping curves and leaving the Molonglo waters almost undeveloped as compared with the American scheme, The French plan wae for fan-shaped town, rich with elaborate parks and boulevards.
Stages of Construction, It now remains, in, accordance with the Ministerial announcement, to combine the bert of all the plans, so that it is plain that the work of actually designing the future city has yet to be done. The successful design of the American architect is said to contemplate a greater city than the Federal capital is likely to become for a very long time. The Australian Home Affairs De partment has already formulated a construction scheme which takes into account the main practical problem of raising the necessary money Under this scheme a period of eight years is set down for the completion of primary works. These are divided into four etages—first, arrangements for transport, material, and electric power; second, hydraulic engineering works outside the city, water supply, drainage, sewers, and a railway bridge; third, "works within the city area preparatory to occupation"; fourth, completion of constructional and engineering works, Parliament Houses, city streets, and a weir on the Molonglo. The scheme boldly estimates how the work will be done each year and the extent of each stage in the construction, and, relying on annual votes from Parliament, calculates, '"'on a very low estimate," expenditure during the eight years in these amounts:—First year, £21,500; sec-and, £167,000; third, £344,000; fourth, £466,000; fifth, £95,000; sixth, £345,000; seventh, £260,000; eighth, £1,500; total £2,000,000. Another estimate, stil] apparently rather conservative, places the expenditure
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.