Guinness World Records recognises Ashgabat, capital of energy-rich Turkmenistan, as 'White-Marble City,' with the world's highest density of buildings made from white marble. Ashgabat's 543 new marble buildings include the Palace of Happiness (pictured) where happy couples marry.
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But Canberra might have out-marbled Ashgabat for the Guinness gong if only a vision of a marble federal capital city, presented 100 years ago this week by the Queanbeyan Age, had come to pass. The Age rejoiced that the region was blessed with wondrous stone deposits bound to be used in building the federal Capital City. And of all of these deposits "Michelago marbles may take pride of place".
"They exist in such vast measurements as to be practically inexhaustible. Our attention has been drawn to this invaluable deposit of mineral wealth by a prospectus which we have seen ... From this document we gather that the locality of these rich finds is [nearby] within two or three miles of the Michelago railway station ... Samples of the marbles have been sent to the Curator of the Technological Museum, Sydney, who pronounces them to be of the highest class ... while they have been declared by marble-dressers, and others competent to judge, to be the finest marble so far discovered in the Commonwealth.
"The prospectus says ... the market for this class of marble is practically unlimited, and as the federal government is about to start the buildings of the federal Houses of Parliament and other federal buildings ... it is anticipated that the federal government alone will be a very big customer for the Michelago marbles."
