The City of Hamilton is unusual in that it is entirely man-made and, at least in its early history, was carefully and imaginatively designed to make maximum use of natural amenities.

This concept is, of course, in sharp contrast to the way in which most European cities gradually evolved over a very long period of time. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the story of Hamilton is that the plan took so long to happen. For almost 200 years, the people of Bermuda had endured the considerable inconvenience of having their capital and principal port stuck at the eastern extremity of the Island.

Luckily, from the moment the decision was finally made to create a new town, in the centre of the Island and adjacent to a long natural harbour approached by the natural basin of the Great Sound, the "movers and shakers'' of the grand design left behind plenty of documentation which has provided later generations with a mass of information on the step-by-step procedure in building a town from scratch.

Now, the talents of Government archivist John Adams and assistant archivist Karla Hayward have once again combined to assemble an archival tour de force with a presentation of data that ranges from maps and surveys and government resolutions to pictorial records of each stage.

This was obviously a gargantuan task, particularly as it followed directly on the heels of this year's Heritage Show, also put together by the two archivists.

One of the advantages of inviting the same people to curate these two shows is that it gives them greater freedom to concentrate on a particular angle. It was not surprising, then, that while the Heritage Show represented a photographic record that revealed the town from a largely societal aspect, this latest exhibition concentrates on its physical development.

It was for this reason that the title (and presumably, the thrust) of the exhibition appears to have changed sometime during its planning stages and the titular sign at the entrance of the Ondaatje Wing reads, Shaping a Capital: Hamilton's First Century.

The show is divided into three distinct sections, The Site and the Port, Developing the Land and Public Buildings and Ritual. The curators have printed brief but concise explanations of each phase -- and rely on the mass of visual records to bring it all to life.

The stroke of near-genius in this presentation is the skillful way in which early sketches and watercolours are placed in juxtaposition to reflect the march of progress. Typical of these is Thomas Driver's pen, ink and watercolour of Hamilton seen from Crow Lane across a tangle of sailboats in 1819, contrasted with an early photograph of the same area, caught at low tide, lush with trees and untouched by the builders, but still recognisable as today's Foot of the Lane.

Again, the same line of trees is carefully recorded in an 1869 albumen print of East Broadway as in the attractive Le Marchant watercolour of the scene.

But perhaps the most dramatic `comparison' pieces are the group of three views of the town viewed from Fort Hamilton (1869-71): the clear lines of the grid-layout, fanning off from present day Church Street is easily recognised in Lt.-Col. Cobb Beresford's precisely executed watercolour and Arthur Green's early albumen prints of around half a century later.

There is something undeniably fascinating in seeing the original, faded brown ink documents that sealed Hamilton's destiny and there are several of these to be perused, such as William Heather's engraving of an Improved Chart of the Bermudas of 1805, which laid the groundwork for establishing channels into the proposed port.

Manuscript Acts of the House of Assembly authorising the momentous undertaking are on view, as are detailed plans for the waterfront, drawn up in 1819 and the Colonial Surveyor's proposed improvements some 70 years later.

There is a reminder that, in spite of Hamilton's rapid development as a viable port and trading centre, it was also seen from the very beginning, as a residential area. This is reflected in some fascinating pictures of substantial homes that stretched from Queen Street to Court Street.

Unfortunately, most of these have, in recent years, been torn down to make way for office buildings; some of them, such as Dellwood and Crawford House, linger on only in their familiar names.

The last section, Public Buildings and Ritual, emphasises that out of commercial success came civic pride, epitomised by the handsome, neo-classic lines of the Public Building (now the Cabinet Building), Victoria Park with its ornate bandstand in the centre, the neo-Gothic Cathedral, the Georgian Sessions House, `smartened up' at the end of the 19th century by the addition of arcades and a clocktower to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

The curators have chosen her Diamond Jubilee, ten years later, as a convenient cut-off point since it was then, in 1897, that Hamilton was incorporated as a city.

This exhibition, which is a wonderfully vivid history lesson, should be required viewing for every school student. It pays a perhaps overdue tribute to those often-maligned early leaders who not only provided a firm commercial base for the Island's capital, but did so with a sense that beautifully proportioned buildings and open spaces were equally important factors in the life of a town. That they managed to do this on the isolated, tiny island of Bermuda, is an incredible success story.

Fortunately, John Adams and Karla Hayward possess the scholarship and artistic flair to do justice to that story. PATRICIA CALNAN.