limited for the city's growth, and in addition to filling suburbs on flat ground it is slowly climbing the Cashmere Hills, part of the coast ranges.
The city has a number of buildings worthy of more than passing notice. The Roman Catholic Basilica is a $300,000 church two hundred and ten feet long and one hundred and six feet wide. The front portico, supported by four Corinthian stone columns forty-five feet high, is flanked by two dome-shaped towers one hundred and eight feet high. Over the portico, midway between these towers, are the kneeling figures of two angels at the foot of a massive cross. Canterbury College, which has an enrollment of about five hundred students, is a pile of ornate stone buildings. The Museum is the best institution of its kind in New Zealand, and very well equipped in its natural history departments. The Cathedral is an attractive edifice with a spire that has been twice damaged by earthquake. It looks down upon Cathedral Square, where the street railways centre, the newspapers have their offices, and some of the leading hotels are to be found.
While the city has more miles of street railway than Auckland, Wellington, or Dunedin, its passenger traffic is considerably less, due to the fact that Christchurch has more bicycles than any other city in the country. There are thousands of them, and they have become a factor in the transportation problem of the city.
The Avon River—named for a stream in Lanarkshire, Scotland—flows through both the business and
