Popular Science Monthly 105 



A New Joint Box Which Prevents How the First Potatoes Were Made 



Submarine Gable Breaks Popular in France 



THE new type of joint box, shown in the A LTHOUGH potatoes were early intro- 

 accompanying illustrations, has just l\ duced into Europe by the Spaniards, 

 been devised to prevent breaks at the joints, they did not come in any quantity for many 

 or splices of sub- 

 marine telegraph 

 and telephone ca- 

 bles, caused by 

 the severe me- 

 chanical stresses 

 set up in the cable 

 because of the 

 constant move- 

 ment carried on 

 by the tides and 

 currents. 



The box, which 

 is made in two 

 halves, is bolted 

 together with a 

 gasket between 

 the two parts, in 

 order to make it 

 waterproof. Two 

 double clamps are 

 attached to the 

 cable, one on each 

 side of the joint 

 and outside of the 

 joint box proper. 

 These two clamps 

 are held in the 

 proper relation to 

 each other by 

 means of four 

 long take-up rods 

 and nuts, which, 

 when tightened 

 up against the 



The new joint box which prevents breakage of sub- 

 marine telegraph and telephone joints or splices 



watentiqn^ jacK^l nere 



Details of the joint box. Two double clamps are 

 fixed to the cable, one on each side of the joint 



ends of the box, bridge over the joint and 

 transfer any stress on one side to the other 

 without causing any strain in the lead 

 sheathing over the actual cable joint. 



Bury the Coffee-Grounds in the Gar- 

 den. They Fertilize the Soil 



THE question of what to do with the 

 coffee-grounds has at last been satis- 

 factorily answered. Just pour them out 

 into the sink-strainer and dump them into 

 the garden. They contain some valuable 

 fertilizing properties, including a large per- 

 centage of nitrogen and a fair amount of 

 potassium and phosphorus. 



years. The Eng- 

 lish found them 

 in Virginia, but 

 it is believed that 

 the Spanish 

 brought them to 

 that colony from 

 further south. 



The first at- 

 tempt to intro- 

 duce them into 

 France was due 

 to a well known 

 scientific author- 

 ity named Par- 

 mentier. This was 

 in the seventeenth 

 century. He im- 

 ported some of 

 the plants, set 

 them out in a 

 field near Paris, 

 and by means of 

 learned pam- 

 phlets and talk 

 with the people, 

 tried to have the 

 new vegetable 

 brought into cul- 

 tivation and the 

 market. 



But it was all 

 in vain. Potatoes 

 did not prove at- 

 tractive; and 

 when the planted ones matured, it seemed 

 that they would rot in the ground on account 

 of the prejudice against them. 



Then some wise man who knew human 

 nature — a student of psychology, with prac- 

 tical ideas — suggested that peasants could 

 not be made to try potatoes by persuasion, 

 but might be led to adopt them if they were 

 forbidden to eat them. 



His idea was adopted. Many signs were 

 painted and erected in plain sight, forbidding 

 under severe penalties any one from taking 

 any potatoes from the field. 



The peasants at once began to raid the 

 hills; and before long most of the ripe tubers 

 were stolen and eaten with relish. 



