Page:Abbot's Guide to Ottawa.djvu/30

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NATIONAL GALLERY.

The National Gallery of Canada has lately been removed to the Victoria Memorial Museum at the south end of Metcalfe street. Three large galleries and six small ones in the east wing have been assigned to its use. The top floor, consisting of one large gallery and six small ones, has been reserved for pictures, etchings, drawings and small bronzes, while the two lower floors are devoted to the exhibition of a representative collection of casts of ancient and mediaeval sculpture. Many fine and valuable pictures have lately been added to the collection. The formal opening by the Governor General is intended to take place in the autumn of 1911.

NEPEAN POINT.

A bold promontory on the Ontario shore of the Ottawa, its cliffs have been cut into to base the eastern end of the Alexandra bridge. The point is approached only from St. Patrick's street, at the north end of Major's Hill Park. The ground has been prettily laid out, and one of the finest views in the city is obtainable from the top of this splendid promontory. Ranged around the top of the cliff, and appearing to command the river at all points, are seven British cannon, now used only for the peaceful purpose of firing salutes at the opening and closing of Parliament, and at such times as Royalty appears officially at the Capital.

OBSERVATORY.

Near the north gate of the Experimental Farm, and rearced by the Somerset street or Experimental Farm cars (Maltese cross and red and white light), is the Dominion Astronomical Observatory. This building was completed early in 1905. It is constructed of grey sandstone with red sandstone trimmings. A central octagonal tower is surmounted by a revolving hemispherical dome under which is the telescope. The building contains a fine astronomical library, reading room, photographic room, and a room with various astronomical and surveying instruments, also a lecture room, etc. In the basement are work shops, seismograph room, clock room, solar research and chemical laboratories. The transit and meridian circle house faces north and south. The coelastat, for solar observations, is contained in an outlying building to the north, which is connected by tunnel with the solar research laboratory. On the grounds nearby are a building containing apparatus for standardizing measures of length, various other auxiliary buildings, and the residence of the Director. The buildings are open every working day. Every

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