Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-05-03
SPONGE FISHING.
NGssdu's CHIEF Indastry- Curious and
Beautiful VGrietieS-C~rtnDf for Market
Pearls an the COnch.
ICOr. N. Y. Evening Post.

FeNftS an the CO7ich.
Cor. N. Y. Evening Post.
WHAT Is A SPONGE?
Scientists have wrestled long and bitterly
| over the nature and origin of the sponge.
Up to not many years ago most of them
| agreed on classifying it simply as one of
the infinite series of Submarine vegetables.
| Later scientific opinion, however. sets
down the sponge as an animal, or rather
bunch of minute animals of low organ
ism, cell shaped, equipped with a stom-
ach and digestive machinery, throwing off
from their bodies masses Of formulated
eggs, and developing in combination with
each other that ibrous mass which ulti-
mately reaches oar markets as the sponge
of commerce. Take one of these masses
which We call q sponge and examine
it more critically. It will be found to
be group of small fbrous cells. which,
after ramifying more or less, connect with
large round apertures penetrating far into
the sponge mass. By suction, or some
| more occult process, the sea water is drawn
through the smaller cells and their parti-
tions. The living organism then takes up
from the passing fnid and devours the
minute aIgp, on which it is supposed to
feed. The water, then loaded with excre-
ment, pours outward in a constant current
through the large orifces. big sponge
has, therefore, been aptly likened to
subaqueous city, whose inhabitants take
up food from the water that passes their
doors and discharge the residuum into the
large round channels which represent the
sewers. Take the world over, sponges ap-
pear in so many species, and with so great
diversity of living organisms, that the
discussion of the whole subject woald take
Us too sar into hazy battle-felds of science.
Suffice it only to say here that Hackel, the
famous German naturalist, contends that
the sponge sheds most luminous scientific
ght on the remoter methods of evoIut o1s
So that contsmp plating one of these inert
masses of fiber hanging prosaically in the
drug store, evolutionists may regard it
with something of the reverential regret
due to protoplasmic ancestor.
The living sponge when first taken from
these waters of the Bahamas, differs almost
as much from the commercial article as Il
humsn body from its own skeleton-for
practically what reaches the market is
partly the skeleton, partly the dwelling of
a bunch of sea organisms. When first
pulled from the rocks where it grows the
sponge looks like a corrugated mass of put
ty. 1t is drab in color, exceedingly heavy,
has sickening odor, and is suffused by
stringy mucous which drops from it in long
viscous lines. The external pores are part
ly closed by sort of sea bug, which finds
refuge in them, and must be an annoying
interloper to the sponge builders; while |
often a red sea worm an inch or two in |
length is found far within the spongy
fhers, whittier he has worked his way. |
What is the exact function of the mucous
fluid does not appear to be clearly settled !
Bat it is certain that when taken from the |
S )onge and placed on still bottoms new
S 1onges are propagated from it; and if {
Two pieces of the same living sponge, or |
OF different sponges OF the same species, |
are laid side by side on the sea bottom,
they soon grow together. The vitality of |
the sponge, ip fact, coupled with the de-
crease of the supply, suggests that ere
many years artificial propagation may |
have to be used.
THE FISHERMEN AND THEIR WORK.
The negro sponge-fshers who ply their !