In public buildings Melbourne can compare well with any other city of its size. The Public Library, the Law Courts, the Town Hall, the Post Office, the Exhibition building, are all architectural ornaments. In the streets there is a want of regularity in the size of the houses, which will be corrected in the course of time, and which is incidental to all new cities where people cannot at first afford to erect lofty structures. Most of the city is on the north side of the Yarra, which winds very much and empties itself into Hobson's Bay, about six miles from Melbourne. The intercolonial and local steamers start from wharves on the river, and passengers by them have, therefore, to endure the bad smells which always prevail. The Thames is bad enough sometimes, but the Yarra can only be compared to the Clyde at Glasgow. A large piece of the river will be cut off by a canal now in course of construction. Hobson's Bay is the north-eastern part of Port Philip Harbour, a noble expanse of water of 800 square miles, with a narrow entrance at the "Heads." There are sharks in it, so that bathing is carried on in parts that are fenced off. There used to be a reward offered by the Government for every shark-skin above 2ft. long. There is a tale of an old loafer round the Harbour called "Paddy Lynch," who having caught a shark of 1 ft. 11 in., stretched its skin the required inch. He is now commonly accosted by the question "Who stretched the shark?" The Public Library is probably one of the largest and completest of its kind to be found anywhere. It now contains about 120,000 volumes, and is rapidly increasing. A new wing is being built to make more room. The trustees have acted with a view to acquiring books of real worth, and no book is selected unless it has made its reputation. Consequently the amount of fiction is small. George Eliot's novels have only just been admitted. The library is not supported by a local rate, but by the Government. The same is the case with all the public libraries throughout the country. However small a township is, you will probably find a public library and a mechanics' institution. In the same building with the library are the Picture Gallery and the Museum. In the former are Miss Thompson's "Quatre Bras," Long's "Esther," and "A Question of Propriety," the latter bought off the easel, besides other good paintings. In the vestibule are plaster casts of some of the aboringines, labelled, "Martha, aged 14;" "Thames, aged 50;" and so on. They are all remarkably ugly, but vary in degree, some being actually repulsive. There are now only a few hundred natives in the whole of Victoria, and they are miserable creatures, not to be compared, for instance, with those in the north-west, where in some places the average height of the natives is 6ft. The library is open daily (except Sunday) from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Some time ago the trustees did open the Library and Picture Gallery on the Sunday, but after five Sundays Parliament