CHAPTER VIII 



SPONGES AND CORALS 



WHEN men put on diving-suits, or use similar 

 devices to descend into the sea, they are imme- 

 diately aware of the fact that many underwater 

 animals seem to accept them as creatures not unlike 

 themselves. Some creatures show a little curiosity per- 

 haps, as they swim slowly past the diver's camera or 

 the "window" of his helmet, yet none of the creatures 

 exhibit the kind of wild panic that our human popula- 

 tions might fall into if strange monsters larger than our- 

 selves (or in any case shaped very differently from our- 

 selves) suddenly descended to our world through the 

 atmospheric "ocean" which enfolds us. 



Many centuries ago, sponges of the Mediterranean 

 coastal waters were used to pad the helmets and shields 

 of Greek warriors. At Ermioni, a town of the Argolide, 

 and at other places, diving sports were held. All swim- 

 mers of those days were divers, and nearly every diver 

 was a sponge fisherman. Sponges were used for many 

 purposes by the Greeks, and although many sponges were 

 washed ashore, the fishermen, centuries before Christ, 

 had learned to go down into the sea and pluck them from 

 the reefs. They went into the water naked, taking nothing 

 with them except marble weights : the diver carried one 

 in his left hand to carry him down to the sea bottom. 



Heavy stones were undoubtedly the first devices used 

 by men in penetrating the coastal waters to collect 

 crustaceans, sponges and so on — they could be instantly 

 released, enabling the divers to surface again — but such 



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