COMMERCIAL SPONGES 739 



The practicability of sponge farming was demonstrated by the success of the 

 projects sponsored by the British Government in the Bahamas and British Hon- 

 duras. From 1935 to 1939 more than 140,000 velvet and wool sponges were 

 raised by the government on the well-protected planting grounds of Andros 

 Island, Bahamas. In British Honduras sponge farming was centered at Turneffe 

 Lagoon, about 30 miles east of Belize, where approximately 800,000 sponges were 

 under cultivation in May, 1939. In both locahties the sponges were almost com- 

 pletely wiped out by a blight, and since this time sponge farming has not been 

 resumed. 



Cultivation, as it was practiced in both places, consisted in growing sponges 

 from rectangular pieces about 2 inches X 4 inches X Vz inch, cut with a very sharp 

 knife from a healthy sponge and attached with a string to a piece of rock or 

 cement disc. It is important that sponges be returned to water as soon as possible. 

 Under these conditions regeneration begins immediately and the sliced piece 

 firmly adheres to its base. In the Bahamas sponges grown from cuttings reach 

 marketable size within 4 years. Cultivation of sponges was also practiced by the 

 Japanese in the Marshall and Caroline Islands. Sponge cuttings were attached to 

 concrete discs, strung on aluminum wire suspended from rafts, or anchored to 

 the bottom and kept afloat by means of a sealed bottle. Cuttings were placed at 

 4-inch intervals. A series of 4 to 5 wire lengths were joined together and suspended 

 from one bottle, which was floated 6 inches below the surface at low tide. The 

 method of suspending the cuttings from the floating bottle gave the most satis- 

 factory results. 



It is very interesting that a specimen of cultivated sponge collected by R. O. 

 Smith in Ailinglapalap Atoll in the Marshalls was identified by M. W. de Lauben- 

 fels as Spongia officinalis, subspecies mollissima known as Fine Levant or Turkey 

 Solid of the Mediterranean Sea. In answering the question of the origin of this 

 sponge and the method of transportation the Japanese authorities emphasized 

 that all the sponges used for cultivation in Ailinglapalap Atoll were of local origin 

 and no Mediterranean species was introduced into these waters. 



Commercial Varieties 



Both the scientific and commercial classifications of economic sponges are con- 

 fused and unsatisfactory, and the two are often contradictory. These animals are 

 so extremely plastic and susceptible to influences of local environment, changing 

 appearance, and details of form and general structure under different physical 

 conditions of the bottom and water that satisfactory descriptions are almost 

 impossible. 



The classification employed in commerce is much more complex than is indi- 

 cated here, as all the sponges named are further differentiated according to 

 geographical origin, quality, and even the methods by which they are taken. 

 Among American sponges, in addition to the various geographical and local desig- 

 nations, we have "forms," "cuts," and "seconds," while in the Mediterranean 

 certain of the commercial species are subdivided into "fines," "commons," "seconds" 

 or "rejects" (ecarts), "plongees," "harponees," etc. The significance of the dis- 

 crimination between the same kind of sponges taken by different means is that 

 they may come from different depths of water, may receive different care in 

 curing, or are less mutilated by one type of apparatus than by another. 



