The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-03-23

GLASS SPoNGES.
Beautiful Specimen Recently Found
on the Coast of California.

Beautiful Specimen Recently Found
on the Coast of California.
From the Scientific American.
1t is not generally known that the
beautiful animals known as glass
sponges are found within the borders
of the United States, yet one species
at least is common, though rarely TAX
en-, off the coast of the southern Cali
fornia islands, especially in the So
called grouper banks of Santa Cata-
lima, where fishing is carried on in
water five hundred or SIX hundred
feet deep.
1t was here that an attractive speci-
men was found, being brought up by
fish hook. The sponge was species
of 1loltenia, probably HOltenia Car
penteria, about twelve inches in height
and nearly six in diameter. The long
glass-like roots had been torn off when
1t was brought up. In appearance the
sponge was a veritable porcupine,
long needle-like spicules standing out
all over it. the longest three inches in
length. needles so sharp and brittle
that it was difficult to hold or touch
the sponge, and at glance it resem-
bled some odd or fanciful cactus.
The sponge was vase shaped and
would hold three pints of fluid, bulg-
ing out in the center. with an opening
at the top sufficiently large to admit
the closed hand. The long spicules
reaching out from it presented a splen-
did appearance when held up to the
sun, and resembled glossy hairs,
cleaning and scintillating wherever
the sun flashed along their surfaces.
Many of the spiCuleS were overgrown
with an attractive Coralline, so that
they appeared branched like the limbs
of a tree. In these mimic branches
hung pendent many miniature pink
hued star fishes and shrimps, while
fastened to them, cOiled and interlaCed,
were the barrow-lilSe egg cases of a
skate.
That these sponges are fairly COM
mon in deep water off-shore is evident
by the small specimens often brought
up and the pieces found on the outer
islands. especially San Nicolas; but
never before has so large and perfect
a specimen been seen.
The glass sponges are so called be-
cause their skeleton, or the spicules,
resemble glass, being formed or silica
instead of lime and closely resembling
spun glass.
The most beautiful of the group is
the Venus flower basket, or Euplec-
tella aspergillum, which represents a
vase of spun glass Of the most beauti-
ful description. When the first speci-
men was found II was sold at a fabu-
lous price, and its true nature was not
suspected. But finally specimen
was taken by a naturalist who made
the interesting discovery that the deli
cate and fragile glass-like vase that
semed to be the work of some cunning
East Indian, was nothing more nor
less than the skeleton of a sponge
whose spicules We're silicious. In the
water and alive the sponge is not an
attractive object, being of a gray col
or and half buried in the mud anchor
ed by long glass-like streamers. But
once dead and relieved of its covering,
it becomes one of the most resplendent
objects of the sea-a fairy vase, that
might we'll have been modelled by the
sea gods as gift to Venus.
This sponge has the spicules so ar
ranged that they present the appear
ance of squares. 1t is closed at the top
and sides, hollow in the interior, and is
occasionally the prison of small crus-
taceans, which enter the interstices
when very young, and, unable to es-
cape, become prisoners for life, and IN