128 A MONOGRAPH OF THE AUSTRALIAN SPONGES, 



Spongilla and a few other sponges from which he thought himself 

 justified to conclude that all sponges were Monactinellae, 

 in Spongilla he saw green bodies, and therefore considered it as a 

 plant. A short time afterwards, and after his ideas had been 

 adopted by several Zoologists, Gray changed his opinion and 

 declared the sponges to be animak. 



III.— From Grant to F. E. Schulze, 1826-1875. 



Till Grant, so little was known about the Anatomy and Phy- 

 siology of the sponges, that it appeared advantageous to review the 

 papers of that period in their chronological order without reference 

 to the contents. 



In the period of progress initiated by Grant, a division of the 

 papers under three headings becomes necessary, and we shall 

 commence with the papers referring to the 



Anatomy and Histology 



of the sponges. In this branch of Spongiology, we have now 

 happily got over the dark age ; and having worked our way 

 through innumerable papers of little value, come to a series of 

 publications, with which, as I can safely say, our knowledge of the 

 sponges practically commences. 



The author of these papers is R. E. Grant. He states that the 

 sponges consist of a soft mass with or without a skeleton. This 

 mass contains throughout ramified channels, through which water 

 is continually passing. The water enters through small holes in 

 the surface, Pores, and leaves the body of the sponge by means of 

 the Oscula, which our author calls faecal orifices. The current of 

 water runs always in the same direction, and is never reversed as 

 former authors stated. He considered swinging cilia to be the 

 cause of the current, although he did not observe them. He says 

 that no classification of sponges is possible without the knowledge 

 of their anatomical structure, and states that some sponges have a 

 fibrous skeleton, consisting of horny fibre only, whilst in others, 



