REPORT OF MR. NELSON L. DERBY.
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gether with a large area beyond, previously used for military purposes, devoted to wide boulevards and squares. These were soon lined with fine structures ; and the city acquired a large sum of money from the sale of sites, which it is now devoting to building purposes. The first structure completed with these funds w r as the beautiful Opera House,—until the completion of the Paris opera building, the finest in the world, —surpassing those of Milan and Naples, if not in size, yet in magnificence and taste. Its cost was not far from five to six million dollars. Within a few steps of this building, a new Academy of the Fine Arts is erecting ; while, following the line of boulevards surrounding the interior city, we come to the old parade-ground, on which the foundations of three enormous structures are being placed: first, a new Parliament House, to be built in Grecian style, by Hausen ; next, in the centre, the new city hall, or Rathhaus, with a front of four hundred and fifty feet, in modernized Gothic, with a central tower, from the plans of Schmidt, which were accepted from among a large number coming from all parts of the world ; and third, the University, by Ferstel, in Roman style. All these buildings are of great size, and will each cost millions, —the Rathhaus perhaps six or seven. The place upon which they stand will be, at their completion, the finest in the World ; and will be still further beautified by a new imperial and royal theatre, to be erected in the immediate vicinity.
Passing by these buildings and the Votive Cathedral,— now building for fifteen years, at a great cost,—we turn down the Schotten ring,—a section of the encircling boulevards,—leaving, right and left, palatial dwellings and hotels, and reach the site of the new Exchange, whose massive foundations astonish the gazer, and have alone cost several hundred thousand dollars. At other points on the ring are to be seen the imposing palaces of the arch-dukes and the new Art Museum; while, on the newer neighboring streets, are numberless dwellinsr-houses, of graceful and ornamental architec- ture, whose forms are borrowed in general from the Italian Renaissance, abounding in widely projecting cornices and %ural decoration. These are mostly of a color very cheering an d grateful to the eye,—a creamy ochre,—similar to that °f our light sandstones, and apparently of that material.