Proposals for the subsidy of a telegraph line to California were made in Congress throughout the 1850s, and in 1860 the U.S. Post Office was authorized to spend $40,000 per year to build and maintain an overland line. The year before, the California State Legislature had authorized a similar subsidy of $6,000 per year.
Click OK on the dialogue box and your text is centred. That's the long way round. Clicking the centre icon on the toolbar is much easier - it's a very useful Macro built in to Microsoft Word. A Macro is a way to create a shortcut for a task that you do a lot. You can create your own macros. The macro we're going to create in the next section is a very simple one, but macros don't have to be simple. You can open up the Visual Basic editor and create a very complex macro indeed.
If you already know about viruses, skip to the bottom of this page for information you might not know. Microsoft provides a web page with detailed information on Word macro viruses, including a detection program you can download. It is recommended reading if you use Word to write your papers. Here's also a message from Alan with directions on how to use Microsoft's disinfecting program.