470 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
The heavy increase in the exports for 1907 was also due to the large crop in 
the preceding year, which for the time being glutted the American market and 
materially reduced the price of the better grades of sponges. Ordinarily it is 
the lower grades only that are exported. 
In addition to the foregoing sponges of domestic origin there were exported 
foreign sponges, principally Bahaman and Cuban, to the value of $153,452 in 
1905, $152,675 in 1906, and $132,791 in 1907, most of them going to France, 
Great Britain, Germany, and other countries of Europe and to Canada. About 
go per cent of the export trade is in New York, and practically all of the rest in 
various ports on the Canadian border. 
V. OTHER WESTERN ATLANTIC FISHERIES. 
BAHAMA ISLANDS. 
The sponge fisheries of the Bahamas date from 1841, when, it is related, the 
value of the native product was recognized by a French sponge dealer who had 
been wrecked in the archipelago, and who shipped a sample lot to Paris. 
Sponge grounds.—The principal beds lieon Great and Little Bahama banks, 
Exuma Bank, and the shoals about Eleuthera, and differ considerably in their 
product. The sheepswool and velvet sponges from Little Bahama Bank, espe- 
cially in the vicinity of Abaco Island, are known as Abaco wool and velvet, as 
distinguished from ‘‘Nassau” or “Cay” sponges, coming from other parts of 
the Bahamas. They are soft and fine, the velvet being the best of that variety 
known to commerce, are packed separately, and bring a higher price in the 
market. It is stated that owing to the demand for these sponges and the conse- 
quent overfishing, the beds have been more or less exhausted and many of the 
sponges now sold as Abaco wool and velvet are in reality selected specimens 
from other grounds. 
The Great Bahama Banks, which extend north, west, and south of Andros 
Island and along the Old Bahama Channel, produce large quantities of wool, 
velvet, yellow, and grass sponges, but these are generally open in texture, coarse, 
and weak, especially those from the southern and southeastern parts of the 
bank. Many of them grow on gorgonians (sea feathers) or corals and are 
frequently pierced by large holes, which mar an otherwise spherical shape. 
In this region all of the four varieties named generally have the lamellz more 
or less thickened to form cushions or flat-ended brushes, so that they all have 
surfaces more or less remotely resembling that of velvet sponges. The region 
from which these sponges come is known to the spongers as ‘‘ The Muds.”’ 
The banks about Eleuthera, which were discovered about 1883, produce a 
somewhat better quality of sheepswool, but not equal to those of Little Bahama 
Bank. 
