OAMARU STONE AND THE TOWN HALL, MELBOURNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 832, 8 November 1867, Page 2

OAMARU STONE AND THE TOWN HALL, MELBOURNE.

The Town Council of Melbourne, in selecting tho stone for the building of th* new Town Hall, do not seem to have been> guided by any extensive knowledge of th»qnalitiea of theOamaru atone, which they have discarded, giving the preference to th» stojae obtained afc Spring Bay, in Tasmania. They' had certainly a recommendation of the Oamaru stone . by llr >Selwyn, the Government Geologist, backed by the opinion of" Dr. Hector and of tha jurera of the New Zealand Exhibition; but more reliance seems io Have been placed upon an examination of: the stone in some of the Melbourne buildings, and it is not unfair to suppose that a lengthy article which appeared in the Argw unfavorable to the selection o£ tlie Oamaru stone, had someinfluence upon the deciaionarrived at. The following are the grounds upon which the Council seem to have acted, as they are represented in the report of the meeting j — " Councillor Amess moved the adoption of the report of the Town Hall Committee, informing the Council that tlie Committee had inspected fhe exteriors of the principal public buildings in the city, with a view to observing the characteristics of the stone used ia their construction, and recommended, as tha result of such inspection, that the stone to ba used in the construction of the Towe Hall be Tasmaniaa stone, from Spring Bay. Councillor Bayles seconded tho motion. He had been a strong advocate for accepting tha Oomara stono, but after the examination which the Committee instituted over th» public buildings, and when he found that th» Oamara stone in the Independent Church "was soft, and varied in colour, he lost hi» opinion of it. In the Post-office they found that some of the Spring Bay stones wera de- ! caying, ao that erreat care must be taken in I selecting only the better samples of th» Spring Bay. la the Bank of Victoria, which was built ot stone from, the same quarries, the material appeared to be superior. Alderman Harrison said that the result of tho selections for the Parliament Library and other buildings had convinced him that no faith waa to be put in chemical testa, and h« should therefore object to the Oamaru stone being chosen for the hall. Councillor Amess mentioued that some of the Oamaru stone in the Independent Church was so bad that it would have to be replaced in two years." The article in tlie Argus, on the sam« subject, concludes thus :— "The atone known as Glaister's is procured from Spring bay, on the eastern, coast of Tasmania, nearly opposite Maria Island. It is a dense white sandstone, containing about ninety-eight per cent, of silica, and bears a close similarity in its analysis to the celebrated Craigleith stone of Edinburgh. It resist a crushing weight five tim s greater than that which the Oamaru stoae will bear ; and from its density absorbs a very small amount of water, and is therefore leas likely to *ail under the noxious influences of the city atmosphere. Ot six specimens of sandston» from Tasmania, a Colony by no means poor in this class of buildinej material, submitted to Mr JTewberry, this was pronounced the best. It has been used in th« upp*r story of the Post Office, an A in th» Bank of Victoria, without showing the slightest symptom of decay ; and reasoning from analogy, we have no reason to doubt that it is the best freestone available in the Australian Colonies. From all the information before us, we think tho Council will exerciso a wise discretion in discarding the Oamaru stone, as not being of a sufficiently determined character, aud a3 involving a risk from which the use of the Tasmanian atone will free them. We believe the (Jam u-u stone to b& admirably adapted for those internal decorations which, it is not advisable to construct ia plaster ; but we conceive that the City Council would scarcely bo justified in facing the external portions with a stone which is in the slightest degree open to question, when the p "cuniary advantage to be gained ia of so trifi *ng a character." As has already been reported, the lowest tender was that of Messrs Lawrence and Cain, tho price for the work being L 50,450 if erected in Oamaru stone, and L 65.290 if erected with Tasmanian, the difference of cost th.ua being L 4.840, or about eight per cent, increase on the smaller amount.

The discovery of a diamond is reported from Sydney. The Herald says: — '*Th« fin© octahedral diamond, weighing one carat and a half, which was recently discovered by Mr Landsdown. a miner, at Larbert, oa the Shoalhaven Kiver, has been brought up to Sydney by Mr Maddrell, and is now on view at the shop of Messrs FLivell and Co., goldsmiths Mid jewellers, in George street. It is a fine clear stone, but wilt, of course, inevitably lose considerably in bulk when it conies to the wheel of the lapidary. At the sanie establishment is also to be seen a beautiful 'brilliant' diamond, sent to England to be cut, and recently returned to thiaColony in all its yerr^jjly developed b'auty. This exquisite sbin9 (which even at first was smaller than that brought up from Shoalhaven by Mr Maddrcll) was found in the Albert district in this Colony, on th» Queensland border, to the north-west. Tha Albert district diamond was cut in England by an expert lapidary, the brother of Mr Flavell, who appears to be inclined to become a purchaser of these boautiful and costly crystals. There are, doubtless, many of these diamonds found by our gold-diggers, and perhaps even preserved as curiosities, which are never converted into cash, becauß* their real value ia suffered to remain unknown."