THE COMMERCIAL SPONGES AND THE SPONGE FISHERIES. 503 
recuperation of beds exhausted by diving, and the crop then produced is com- 
paratively abundant. While the hardships and personal risks of the dredgers 
are negligible as compared with those attending diving, the effects on the beds 
are far more disastrous. 
Owing to the comparatively small expense for equipment and operation, 
and the fact that dredging can be carried on in all depths and in weather which 
would inhibit other methods of fishing, it is possible by this means to conduct a 
fishery of great intensity and to exploit grounds so depleted as to be unprofitable 
for diving. It is by no means certain that the offshore grounds of Florida are 
not too rough for the gangava, but to prevent the introduction of this method 
of fishing in shallow water and to forestall the establishment of a “vested 
interest’’ which might be difficult to deal with in the future, it is desirable that 
legislation be passed restricting the use of the dredge to depths far beyond those 
which it is possible to exploit by other means. 
IX. THE REGULATION AND PROTECTION OF THE SPONGE FISHERIES, 
WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO FLORIDA. 
MEASURES IN FORCE. 
Until recently the regulation of the sponge fisheries of the Mediterranean 
has been, with few exceptions, concerned chiefly with the production of a 
revenue for the governments concerned, but during the past fifteen years, owing 
chiefly to the efforts of Mr. Charles Flegel, another element has been introduced, 
the protection of the spongers themselves from the physical effects of their 
calling. 
It is true that in a few places measures are in force which tend to protect 
and conserve the sponge beds. In Dalmatia recent attempts to introduce the 
scaphander and the dredge have met with opposition and interdiction, and the 
sponge banks are opened to the other spongers only during alternating periods 
of two years. A somewhat similar regulation is proposed for the Bay of Taranto. 
In Cyprus the dredge is entirely prohibited, and in Egypt its use is authorized 
only in depths greater than 262 feet, where it is impossible to take sponges by 
any other means. In Greece, Tripoli, Tunis, and on the banks of Lampedusa 
all forms of apparatus are permitted under varying conditions as to taxes and 
licenses ; but in Turkey, Egypt, Crete, and the principality of Samos the scaphander 
is prohibited on broad economic and humanitarian grounds rather than for the 
narrower consideration of the protection of the sponge beds, and for the same 
reason Greece has attempted to regulate the maximum depth to which this 
apparatus may be used without restricting in any way its employment in shoaler 
waters, in which it might be supposed to do greater damage to the beds. The 
attitude of the Greeks in this matter is readily understood, for they are dominant 
in the fishery and most of their diving is carried on in waters away from home. 
