Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/265

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DUNEDIN
169

ways, and more room is being made by filling in shallow harbor areas.

To climb its steep hills the city employs cable cars, the city's electric tramway system being confined mainly to flat ground. There are two private cable lines and one owned and operated by the Borough of Mornington. On the steepest part of the municipal line the grade is about thirty per cent. These cable systems figure that it is worth more to a man to be carried uphill than downhill, and they charge accordingly.

Dunedin has an aspect of solidity. Its streets are well paved, its principal buildings are substantial, and many of them are ornate as well. The majority of the business blocks are built of stone, brick, and concrete. The highest of them is the seven-story reinforced concrete structure built for the New Zealand Express Company, at a cost of $225,000.

The architecture of the public buildings is pleasing. The town hall, overlooking the Octagon, has not been weathered into blackness like Wellington's municipal hall, and it is more pleasantly situated. By some critics it is considered to have the most musical clock chimes in the country. Near the town hall, and built with a donation of $50,000 from Andrew Carnegie, is the best Carnegie library in the two islands. Other important buildings are the Law Courts; the Boys' High School, noted for its large swimming-bath; and the University of Otago, housed in a group of buildings of the domestic Gothic style, and having attached to it thirty professors