El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-23
No Sa1aried Officials.
| second plunge for the rest of the

a second plunge for the rest of the
season.
The work is severe. and frequently
the diver returns empty handed 10 the
| boat. Diving is usually carried on
| in the summer months. In winter 1T
is too cold-at all events, without a
diving dress. The ordinary divers
dress. with pumping apparatus. is
largely Used by the Greeks. The div
! ing is CARED on from a ship manned
! by eight or nine men, including one or
| two divers. At a depth of from ten
to fifteen fathoms the diver can re-
main under for an hour; at greater
depth, up to twenty fathcms, only
few minutes. The consequences of
! longer stay are palsy of the lower ex-
tremities and other complaints.
Dredging is chiefly carried on along
the west coast of Asia Minor, princi-
pally in winter after the autumn
storm have torn up the sea-weeds COW
ering the bottom. The mouth of the
dredge is six yards wide and one yard
high. The net is made OF camel hair
cord of the thickness of a finger, with
meshes four inches square. 1t is
drawn along the bottom by tow-line
attached to the bowsprit of a sailing
vessel or hauled in from the shore.
Cleansing the SDonges.
After sponge has been taken from
the sea it is exposed to the air until
signs of decomposition set in. and then
without delay either beaten with
stick or trodden by the feet in a stream
of flowing water till the skin and other
soft tissues are completely removed
After cleaning the sponge is hung up
in the air TO dry. ana then with 9th
ers finally pressed into bales If not
dried before packing the
sponges heat. orange yellow spots
appearing on the parts attacked. The
only remedy for this is to unpack the
bale and remove the effected sponges.
houses are cut to a symmetrical shape
and further cleaned. The light-color-
ed spongeS often seen in chemists
shops have been bleached by chemical
means.
Promptly by a suggestion that
sponges might be artificially propogat
ed from cuttings, the Italian govern
ment supplied funds for experiments
to determine the feasibility of culti- |
waiting sponges as an industrial pur-
suit A station was established on the |
island of LeSina, off the Dalmatian |
coast, and experiments were carried |
on for six years. The results were on |
the whole successful, but all expecta- |
lions of creating new source of in |
come for the sponge nSherS OF Dalma-
tia were defeated by the histility OF |
the fishers themselves
In sponge farming the sponges were |
cut into pieces about one inch square,
and these were secured between two
parallel boards, which were sunk to
the bottom of the sea and weighter
with stones. A favorable situation is
a sheltered bay with a rocky bottom
overgrown with green seaweed and
freshened by gentle waves and cur
rents. So favored, the cuttings grow
to a sponge two or three times their
original size in one year, and at the
end of five or seven years are large
enough for the market. Similar ex-
Deriments with like results have also
been carried on in Florida. The chief
drawback to successful sponge farm
ng would appear to be the long inter-
val which the cultivator has to wait
or his first crop.