Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 182, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1910 — SPONGE FISHING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SPONGE FISHING

IN THAT eager search for the secret of life —never more zealously prosecuted than in our day, and never with more startling and baffling results—the lowest forms of living organizations take on a new interest as apparently leading us nearer and nearer to the narrow portal in that thin partition which separates the things that live from all others. The claims which have been made that science has been able to compel inert substances to pass through this portal and to live are yet to be verified. In the capacious and sheltered bosom of the deep sea Is found the home of very many of these mysteries, and may perhaps be found their solution and the beginning of living. Meanwhile, without inquiring too closely into their genesis, practical man has laid violent hands on many of these humbler brethren and made them subject his daily needs and luxuries. Chief among these are the sponges, “perhaps the very lowest of the Protozoa.” The long controversy as to whether they were animal or vegetable has been terminated by assigning them to the higher rank; but they betray a surprising number of points of resemblance with the plants, both in life and death. To begin with, they effect reproduction of their kind by gemmation, or budding, and by true ova or eggs. The United States government has recently published a learned little pamphlet by a North Carolina professor on the feasibility of “raising sponges from tfie eggs.” It seems that the two sexes are found combined in one individual. The eggs, In great number, are discharged through the large apertures, called oscula, on the surface of the sponge, and swim off into the big world as larvae, propelling themselves fcy the slender hair-like processes of protoplasm or cilia, with which their solid, oval little bodies are covered. In size they frequently attain the length of a millimeter; one-lwenty-flfth of an inch. W T hen bred in the laboratory this wandering existence lasts only a day or two; the infant navigator soon anchors himself to some firm basis, loses his cilia and his oval farm and flattens down into a minute incrustation on the rock or other base, spreading out into an irregular shape. ■This becomes a true sponge in fundamental structure, but without reproductive organs, and the length of time required to reach the adult stage is not yet known. If a living sponge is cut with a knife Bud the severed portions placed together, even in a new position, they speedily reunite; but if the portions are of different species, no such union, it is said, ever takes place. If the individual sponges are brought together they also coalesce into one, than which nothing more confusing in the case of an animal can be conceived. Ou the other hand, the strong ammonia cal odor of the dying sponges on the decks of the fishing vessel would the decks of the fishing vessels would serve to convince beyond doubt the least sensitive nostrils that this was Indeed animal life.

In the Levant fisheries, on the coasts of Canada, Barbary and Syria, the depth of the water necessitates diving, the diver maintaining his connection with the boat by a cord attached to a flat, triangular piece of stone which he takes down with him. These eastern sponges are much superior in quality to those from the West Indies and the coast of Florida. The Greek fisheries of the Morea use a flat five or six pronged instrument, and generally Injured their sponges by tearing, it Is said. 1 The American Sponges are classified as follows by the spongers and buyers: Sheepswool, yellow, grass, velvet or boat, and glove, with a few other unimportant varieties. The average value per pound in 1900 was $2.67 for sheepswool, B 9 cents for yellow, 23 cents for grass and 37 cents for all others. The total yield of the sponge fishery for this year was 418,125 pounds, with a total value of 3567,685. This yield is not sufficient to meet the demand, and lafge quantities are imported every year, the greater part coming from the Bahama Islands. Cuba, Haiti, Greece, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. During 1900 there was

an exportation of 71,642 pounds of domestic sponges, valued at $32,199, mostly of grass sponges, for which there is very little demand in this country. It is probable that the progress of science and the enormous increase in all kinds of sanitary and antiseptic precautions will largely diminish the use of sponges, as has been already the case for hospitals, toilet purposes, etc. When received by the buyers the sponges are still far removed from a condition in which they can be placed on the general market. It is necessary to clean them thoroughly, so that no foreign substances remain in them, and to trim off the rough edges to give a symmetrical appearance. This work Is carried on in the large warehouses which the buyers maintain at convenient places along the coast. Unfortunately, other processes are-also employed, such as loading, to increase the weight, rock salt, glucose, molasses, lead, gravel, sand and stone being all used, according to the government’s official report. These substances are mixed with water in water-tight bins and the sponges immersed in them until they are thoroughly soaked. They are then run through a nordlnary clothes-wringer or laid on an inclined rack and allowed to drain Into the bins. The more conscientious buyers are obliged to resort to these measures in order to compete with their less scrupulous business rivals. The bleaching is done at the large wholesale houses or by the jobbers in the trade, and as lime and acids are used, this process weakens the fiber and shortens the usefulness of the sponge. A perfectly harmless method of bleaching employed by the spongers gives a white or golden tone for specimens or presentation sponges. This consists merely of washing them in soapy water, and, after covering them with soap-suds, hanging them on the masts of the bqats or on poles on the. shore. The action of sunlight and of the nightly dews completes the work. For transportation the sponges are baled in burlap, each kind by itself, the bales representing a net weight of sponge of from 15 to 50 pounds. For compressing them, sponge presses, very like those used for 'cotton, are employed.

Notwithstanding all these transformations, the usual sponge of daily use will give us a very fair idea of the structure of the original living animal. In general, the lower orifices may be taken to be the oscular or cloacal openings, through which the waste particles are the ova pass out, though there is in some species but one of these openings. The inhalant pores, which take the place of mouths, are much smaller, and through'them i 3 introduced the water, carrying with it both air and the organic particles for the support of life. Communication between these exterior openings is established in the interior of the mass by a system of ciliated passages or canals connected with minute chambers. This fibrous mass is supported by a species of skeleton or calcareous or Bilicious spicules, all sponges being divided by scientists into two orders, Calcispongiae and Siliclspongae, according to the nature of these skeletons. Though the scientific investigation of these animals has been carried very far by careful investigators, there are still some important matters to be elucidated, as may be inferred from a passage in the latest edition of the “Encyclopedia Britannica:” . . . . it is becoming increasingly apparent that the term mesoderm cannot be applied with propriety to the skeletogenous parenchyma of sponges, and that they can no more be characterized as ‘Mesodermalia’ than can the Alcyonarians.” ARTHUR HEWITT.

AN OLD FISHERMAN