of the
streets in which they stand. Among the most prominent are the Houses of
Parliament, the great domed custom-house on the river-bank, the lands
office, the general post-office, the town halls of Brisbane and South
Brisbane, and the opera house. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St Stephen
(Elizabeth Street) is an imposing building, having a detached campanile
containing the largest bell in Australia. The foundation-stone of the
Anglican cathedral, on an elevated site in Ann Street, was laid by the
prince of Wales (as duke of York) in 1901. The city is the seat of a Roman
Catholic archbishop and of an Anglican bishop. Many of the commercial and
private buildings are also worthy of notice, especially the Queensland
National Bank, a classic Italian structure, the massive treasury buildings,
one of the largest erections in Australia, the Queensland Club with its
wide colonnades in Italian Renaissance style, and the great buildings of
the Brisbane Newspaper Company. Brisbane is well provided with parks and
open spaces; the Victoria Park and Bowen Park are the largest; the
high-lying Mount Coot-tha commands fine views, and there are other parks
and numerous recreation grounds in various parts of the city, besides the
admirable botanical gardens and the gardens of the Acclimatization Society.
Electric tramways and omnibuses serve all parts of the city, and numerous
ferries ply across the river. There is railway communication to north,
south and west. By careful dredging, the broad river is navigable as far as
Brisbane for ocean-going vessels, and the port is the terminal port for the
Queensland mail steamers to Europe, and is visited by steamers to China,
Japan and America, and for various inter-colonial lines. There is wharf
accommodation on both banks of the river, a graving dock which can be used
by vessels up to 5000 tons, and two patent slips which can take up ships of
1000 and 400 tons respectively. The exports are chiefly coal, sheep,
tallow, wool, frozen meat and hides. The annual value of imports and
exports exceeds seven and nine millions sterling respectively. There are
boot factories, soap works, breweries, tanneries, tobacco works, &c. The
climate is on the whole dry and healthy, but during summer the temperature
is high, the mean shade temperature being about 70 deg. F.

Brisbane was founded in 1825 as a penal settlement, taking its name from
Sir Thomas Brisbane, then governor of Australia; in 1842 it became a