Atlanta has some beautiful streets for driving. Peachtree, Washington, Whitehall and Peters Streets and Capitol Avenue are paved with asphalt, and this smooth surface makes a fine speedway. Whitehall and Peachtree Streets, connecting at the viaduct, form a continuous asphalt boulevard three and one-half miles long. This is connected north of the city with a macadam pike to Buckhead, and south of the city with a chert road to College Park, six miles beyond the city limits. This forms a continuous boulevard fifteen miles long in a north and south line, with a smooth surface, which is well adapted to carriages, bicycles and automobiles. [Illustration: GRAND OPERA HOUSE.] Prominent Structures. Atlanta has many handsome buildings, notable among which are the State Capitol, the new Court-House, the Carnegie Library, of white marble, the Grand Opera House, the nine great fire-proof office buildings, and the beautiful Piedmont Hotel, which is also a fire-proof structure. The Federal Prison, three miles out, is one of the most important in the United States. There are several other large hotels, notably the Kimball, the Aragon, the Majestic and the Marion. The value of buildings erected in 1903 was reported by the City Building Inspector as $3,161,445, and the number of permits issued was 3,441. A marked increase in the average value of dwellings was noted. Following is a list of the office-buildings for which Atlanta is famous. They make the heart of Atlanta look like the lower part of Manhattan Island. Each has a steel frame, with non-combustible partitions, every modern convenience, and a costly interior finish of marble and hard-wood. The elevator and janitor service is first-class, and lavatories, barber shops and restaurants are well placed. The ground floor in a majority of these buildings is occupied by banks, whose offices are superbly finished. The population of these palatial hives of industry amounts to several thousand, and the facilities they offer for doing business are unequalled elsewhere in the Southern States. List of Fire-Proof Office Buildings. Equitable Building, eight stories. English-American Building, eleven stories. Austell Building, nine stories. Prudential Building, ten stories. Empire Building, fourteen stories. Peters Building, eight stories. Century Building, twelve stories. [1]Fourth National Bank Building, sixteen stories. [1]Candler Building, seventeen stories. The aggregate cost of these nine structures, exclusive of the land on which they rest, was $4,000,000. They are all occupied, except the two under construction, in which space is being contracted for. The Building Inspector's record shows that in the nine years since the Exposition of 1895, buildings to the value of $15,256,169 have been erected. In the same period 4,666 dwellings built house a new population of 20,000. Since the census of 1900 new dwellings number 2,663. Car Wheel Works.