two legislative halls are on each side of the library, but in the main building. The dimensions of these halls are the same of those of the House of Lords,-namely, 80 feet by 45; they are situated on the ground floor and lighted from above. The library is constructed after the plan of the new library of the British Museum, and will hold 300,000 volumes. The speaker's rooms, and all other offices and conveniences required, are judiciously arranged within easy reach of the legislative halls. The speaker's and librarian's residences are detached buildings and do not necessarily form part of the main structure. The The two departmental buildings contain in the aggregate 300 rooms, and are intended to accommodate all the departments of the government of the province; and are so constructed as to be capable of extension at any future time without injuring the general architectural effect. buildings cover nearly four acres, and some idea of their magnitude may be inferred from the following brief statistics. The plastering when completed will exceed ten acres in extent. The number of windows and doors is about 1,200; the length of the cornices, 12 miles; the number of bricks used, 12,000,000; together with many thousand yards of masonry, cut-stone work, and much carving and decora tions of a similar character. The architects for the parliament buildings are Messrs. Fuller and Jones, of Toronto; Mr. Thomas McGreevy, of Quebec, is the contractor. The architects for the departmental buildings are Messrs. Stent and Laver; the contractors, Messrs. Haycock and Jones. It is quite impossible to state the cost of these buildings when finished: it is sufficient to say that up to the present moment, upward of a million dollars has been expended on them, and they are still far from being completed. |