. 
436 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
bottle and is sprinkled on the water in small quantities by means of a stick or 
swab, the sponger drifting with the “slick,’’ poling back and forth so as to 
cover its entire breadth. ; 
This method of sponging is still followed in the vicinity of Key West and 
among the keys where the depth does not exceed 5 or 6 feet, two or three men, 
each with a dingey, cruising about on little sloops, cooking, sleeping, living, and 
to some extent curing their sponges in the most contracted of quarters. They 
usually build small, frail “crawls” of a temporary character, to which they return 
each night while in the vicinity, or else the whole product of the trip is carried 
back to Key West, often in a most unsavory condition, and “crawled” at that 
place. This fishery is now generally followed only during the winter months, 
when the more profitable deep-water fisheries can not be prosecuted on account 
of the weather, or at other 
seasons of the year by the 
less skilled spongers, by per- 
sons temporarily out of other 
employment, or by the local 
residents of the keys. It is 
prosecuted mainly on the 
Key grounds as far as the 
Cowpens and its product is 
small. 
With the growth of the 
demand for sponges and the 
depletion of the beds nearer 
Key West, the search for 
other grounds carried boats 
farther and farther away 
until the Matecumbes were reached. Here it was found that the sponge growth 
inside the keys came toa more or less abrupt limit, but along the northwest shore 
of Hawk Channel, between the keys and the reefs, the workable beds were found 
to extend as far as Norris Cut, a few miles northof Cape Florida. In 1879 this 
appears to have been the known extent of the Key grounds, as is shown by a 
chart of about that date prepared during the canvass for the Tenth Census. Few 
inhabitants then lived on the shores of Biscayne Bay and the beds in the waters 
within that bay and Cards Sound, if known, were rarely if ever worked, although 
soon after that time they were extensively resorted to by the Key West fleet, 
which found sheepswool sponges of rather inferior quality and especially grass 
sponges in large quantities. The sponge grounds were also found to extend 
along the reefs as far as Hillsboro Inlet, but owing to the prevalence of heavy 
seas on this part of the coast they were not extensively exploited. 
Fic. 1.—Hook used by the sponge fishermen of Florida. 
