486 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
smaller, less seaworthy vessels, or dispense with them entirely when working 
near home. The working boats, corresponding to the dingeys of the Florida 
coast, are propelled usually by one, occasionally by two, pairs of oars, and are 
not sculled with a single oar as in our own waters. When a sponge is sighted 
the harpoon is driven into it, preferably on the side near the root, and it is 
detached by a double motion of rotation and rocking. 
This fishery is practicable in deeper waters than those in which hooking is 
carried on in Florida. Depths of even 70 to 80 feet are reached, and off Ben- 
ghazi sponges are harpooned in as much as go feet. In fishing in such deep 
water three persons are assigned to a boat, the third usually a boy handing 
the harpoons to the harpooner and assisting in attaching and detaching the 
additional shafts. 
The poles are about 20 feet long, and to the top of each is lashed a short 
stick, about 6 or 8 inches long, the end of the pole being slightly cut away to 
create a space between it and the stick. Into this gap the end of the next har- 
poon is thrust and held in place by a ring, just above the iron, which is slipped 
over the stick. A third, or as many harpoons as are necessary, are added to 
reach the desired depth. After the sponge is impaled and torn loose from the 
bottom the poles are successively detached as they are brought up. The sponges 
are less firmly attached to the bottom than are those of Florida. 
Owing to the rents likely to be made by the harpoon, the finer grades of 
sponges are less valuable when taken by this method than when procured by 
diving, and are known in the markets as ‘‘harpoonées,”’ as distinguished from 
‘“‘plongées.”” On the Tunisian coast there appears to be but little difference 
between the two in price. In Dalmatia tongs are employed, one leg of which 
is attached to a pole and the other operated by a cord. 
Dredging or trawling.—The dredge or trawl (Greek gangava, Italian gagova 
or cava, French drague), shown in text figures 2 to 4, is of special type and large 
size, and has been used for many years by Greeks in the Levant and by Greeks, 
Sicilians, Neapolitans, and Maltese on the coasts of Africa and the banks of 
Lampedusa. It consists, essentially, of a rectangular frame from 15 to 4o feet 
long and from 20 to 30 inches high, to which is attached a bag about 6 to 10 
feet deep, made of large-mesh webbing of light rope (fig. 2, p. 487). 
That part of the frame which scrapes the bottom is a round iron bar about 
21% to 3 inches in diameter, the ends being bent at right angles for a distance 
equal to the desired height of the frame and connected by a stout wooden bar 
to form the top. Frequently the ends of the frame are short wooden bars 
fitted into sockets in the upturned ends of the iron bar (fig. 3, p. 488). 
In the larger frames the parallel iron and wooden bars forming the bottom 
and the top of the frame, respectively, are connected and stiffened by one or two 
transverse struts (fig. 4, p. 488), but in the smaller dredges these are omitted. 
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