516 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
and men; a correspondingly large number of widows and orphans without 
means of livelihood, with the worst of consequences to the high morality of 
former times; fading girls on account of lack of marrying men; lack of work 
for many on account of the scarcity of sponges due to the destructive fishing; 
pauperism and emigration on account of the general misery—in short, a social 
disintegration of the worst kind. The suffering people sought relief in vain 
for twenty-six years, unable to make their protest heard or to obtain assistance 
in their struggle. The various governments in whose power it lay to remedy 
the evil were slow to recognize it, and it has been only by unremitting effort 
that action has been secured. Most of the Mediterranean countries, and also 
the United States, have within the past decade taken measures of prohibition 
or relief, but there still remains in many localities much to be desired. 
METHODS OF SPONGE FISHING. 
Sponge fishing by the three good methods had been an industry for cen- 
turies, especially in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. Sponges were 
found in great abundance before, both in shallow and deep waters, the fishermen, 
especially the naked divers, obtaining a good profit. The rowers were taken 
from neighboring localities, and youths and men, up to advanced age, were 
engaged for naked diving or the manipulation of the five-pronged hook and 
the dragnet. Whole fleets of small, excellent sailing vessels with naked divers 
departed to the East every spring after Easter, to the harbors of Syria, to the 
islands of Kalymnos, Syme, Chalke, and Kastelloriso; and other sailing fleets, 
with the five-pronged hook and the dragnet, left Tschesmé, Halikarnass, Hydra, 
Kranidion, Hermione, and Salamis, the village of Crappano in Dalmatia, the 
harbors of Italy, Tunis, Florida, Cuba, and the Bahama Islands. Healthy and 
jolly crews returned in September, from the coasts and the banks of the Medi- 
terranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, with a rich harvest of sponges to sell to 
the local merchants for exportation. 
The inhabitants of some of the islands and coasts of the Agean Sea have 
from early generations been excellent divers, and were skillful also with hook 
and dragnet. The divers of Delos were famous in antiquity; those of Kalymnos 
and Syme are so to-day.” 
The naked divers descend to the considerable depth of 75 meters and remain 
under water from 1% to 2 minutes, afew even 2% to 234minutes. Ina quest by 
the commander of a Russian gunboat in the harbor of Suda on August 10, 1907, 
one of several divers proved to be the best of them by remaining under water 
2 minutes and 5 seconds at a depth of 17 meters, moving about hurriedly. In 
@ Herodotus mentions in Urania (chap. 8) the celebrated diver Skyllias of Skione. The sponge 
is mentioned by Homer in the Odessey (song 22, verse 455) and by A’schylus in Agamemnon (verse 
1,329). 
