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Just returned from a holiday on Norfolk Island. An island in the Pacific, a 3 hour NE flight from Sydney with a fascinating history. Site of a failed polynesian settlement around 1400 - 1500, discovered by Captain Cook in 1774, a harsh British penal colony from 1834 to 1855 and then granted by Queen Victoria as a permanent home to the decendants of the Bounty mutineers who had outgrown their refuge on Pitcairn Island. One of the most arduous jobs assigned to the convicts was the treadmill, which used man power to grind maize into meal or flour. Described as a very useful piece of machinery for the purpose of correcting their tarnished morals, the treadmill was reserved for the worst-behaved convicts, and acted as a deterrent for bad conduct in others. Lined up in groups of ten, convicts would climb the boards in unison to turn the mill, a bit like climbing a never ending stairway, or a vertical hamster wheel.