If a man realized at the end of the day how much energy he had expended in normal and almost unconscious physical activities, he would be thankful for the chance to sleep. The writer who pushes his pen over the paper for several hours at a stretch would doubtless think he had worked hard if he had excavated a well in the same time; yet it is believed that the sum of the energy he uses daily in writing would be enough easily to dig a well. The following figures are quoted from _Answers_: Our daily expenditure of force is simply enormous, but it seldom strikes us that we keep on expending force without noticing it. The stoker of a locomotive, when on duty, is said to shovel coal at the rate of about one ton an hour. Presuming that he works at this rate forty hours per week, it is obvious that in the course of a single year he lifts over two thousand tons of coal. Typewriting is not hard work, yet let us see how much energy it takes to write forty letters on a machine. Every time a key is pressed to print a letter a few ounces of force is used, and every time the carriage is returned to begin a new line between one and four pounds of force is requisitioned. Forty letters, averaging twenty-six lines each, would mean about twenty thousand pounds of force expended. Perhaps this never occurred to you before. TRIALS OF AN EDITOR IN OLD CALIFORNIA. SPANISH TYPE HAS ITS FAILINGS. Publishers of the State's First Newspaper Found It Difficult to Express Themselves Typographically. Makeshifts of pioneer journalism have taxed the ingenuity of many a great mind. Writing for the _Bookman_, J.M. Scanland tells the story of early California newspapers. The first paper, the _Californian_, was published at Monterey by Robert Semple, a Kentuckian, who acted as editor, and the Rev. Walter Colton, a navy chaplain, who was then stationed at Monterey, as typesetter and pressman. These two men brought out their first issue on August 15, 1846. Semple went to the village of Yerba Buena (now called San Francisco) a short time later, and during his absence Colton printed the following paragraph: Our Alphabet.--Our type is a Spanish font picked up here in a cloister, and has no vv's [w] in it, as there is none in the Spanish alphabet. I have sent to the Sandvvich Islands for this letter; in the mean time vve must use tvvo v's. Our paper at present is that used for vvrapping cigars; in due time vve will have something better. Our object is to establish a press in California, and this vve shall in all probability be able to accomplish. The absence of my partner for the last three months and my duties as alcalde here have deprived our little paper of some of those attentions vvhich I hope it vvill hereafter receive. VVALTER COLTON. ODDEST JAIL IN THE UNITED STATES. IT IS CUT FROM THE SOLID ROCK.