These were the beginnings of the evolution of modern Buenos Aires, which now properly ranks as the second Latin city of the world. Nor is it by any means alone to material progress that the City of Buenos Aires owes its present proud position. The spirit and qualities of its early founders are manifested to-day in the outward expression of all the attributes of a highly civilized and enlightened community. The architecture and adornments of the city, the culture, education and manners of the inhabitants, their inborn courtesy and generous instincts combine to explain the admiration which all who visit the city never fail to entertain and express. The cosmopolitan character of the population, the palatial residences--the broad and spacious avenues, museums, libraries, art galleries and other unmistakable signs of the high degree of culture of the citizens, fully justify the description of Buenos Aires as the Paris of the western hemisphere. Originally built up on Spanish lines of single-story houses and narrow streets, the mason has been superseded by the architect and many of the old narrow thoroughfares by wide and beautiful avenues intersecting the central portions of the city. The domestic architecture of the time of Rozas was gradually succeeded by the introduction of the architectural beauty of the period of the Renaissance and subsequently by the various Grecian orders, culminating in the advent of European architects and artists who evolved many unique and distinct styles which are to-day illustrated in a number of the imposing and artistic edifices that adorn the city and, with the surrounding parks, trees, gardens, flowerbeds and running waters, both in the centre and in the suburbs, reveal a panorama of unsurpassing beauty. Many of the ancient houses with flat roofs and severely simple facades have been substituted by highly ornamented dwellings of two, three, or more stories; and, with a desire to add to the embellishment of the city, the Municipality offers a gold medal and a diploma to the architect, and an immunity from payment of the building tax to the owner, of the building for the most artistic facade, the jury being composed of representatives of different bodies exercising authority in relation to such matters as architecture, surveys, public works, engineering and fine arts. By the employment of these methods, Buenos Aires, in recent years, has made notable advance in architecture, not only in regard to private dwellings, but also in its public buildings and the unquestionable increase in number and quality of the monuments, statues, and sculptural groups dotted over every part of the city. During the last twenty years there have been constructed new avenues and thoroughfares of great width and length lined by handsome buildings, paved with asphalt and lighted with huge electric globes, whilst the Municipality has spared no expense in widening many existing