The External Aspect.

Come with me up the sloping ramp from Beach Road, up which trams and motor cars will hustle with passengers soon after September. It is a wide and spacious thoroughfare leading to what might be the studded doors of some mediæval castle—adjusted to modern requirements. Along the balustrades workmen are placing the last of the decorative blocks of grey Coromandel granite, beautiful in texture, which will grow still more beautiful as it is tempered by the weather of years to come.

Notice, too, how this grey granite has been used for the whole base of the huge building. Surely it will tempt other architects and builders to demand such fine stone for similar ventures. There is no need to go overseas for it.

Avoid the bricks and beams, and step inside the main entrance hall. But for the scurrying noise of men polishing the marble floor it might page 30 be anything but a railway station—as New Zealanders know such a place. Gone are the corrugated iron roof and the warren of tiny offices. Everything is beauty and utility.