ABUSE OF THE SCAPHANDER IN THE SPONGE FISHERIES. 535 
statistical data. The majority of the foreigners are machine divers on sailing 
vessels flying the Greek and Ottoman flags, and the “‘ Condizioni”’ report regularly 
cases of death, disease, and desertion among them. Since, however, the Greek 
divers conceal their accidents and misdeeds from the Italian authorities, the 
statistics are not very complete. In the summer of 1902 the Naval Office 
promulgated a partial prohibition of the diving machines, regulating the depth 
in order to prevent disease and death; but the enforcing of such partial pro- 
hibition is very difficult, and thus this measure is quite insufficient in practice, 
as shown by the report of the ‘‘Condizioni’’ for the year 1907 for the cruise of 
1905, which mentions four new cases of illness of Greek sponge divers. 
According to the “‘Condizioni” for 1906, there were in the Italian waters in 
the year 1904, 309 Italian fishermen on 63 sailing vessels of 1,302 tons. The 
total number of Italian sponge fishers for that year may, however, be computed 
at 1,270 men on 200 sailing vessels. The official statistics do not mention the 
137 sailing vessels which departed for Tunis, nor the quantity and value of the 
sponges gathered by them. According to the same source, there were in the 
Italian waters 406 Greek fishermen on 37 sailing vessels, of which 110 on 22 
sailing vessels from Kranidion were equipped with dragnet and 296 on 15 
sailing vessels from A/gina carried diving apparatus. The fishing grounds were 
the extensive banks of Lampedusa and Pantellaria, where 36,864 kilograms of 
sponges, valued at 615,781 francs, were gathered as follows: For the 309 Italians, 
247,184 franes; for the Greeks, 368,597 francs, or for each Italian 800 and for 
each Greek about 908 francs. If we consider, however, that the expenses of 
the fishery are far greater for the diving apparatus than for the other modes of 
fishing, we see that the profit of the Italians and of the minority of the Greeks 
without these machines was in no way smaller than that of the majority of the 
Greeks using the diving apparatus, with the great difference that all the Italians 
and the minority of the Greeks fished with harmless means, while the majority 
of the Greeks used apparatus injurious to their health and to the prosperity of 
the Italian sponge grounds. The Italian Government hoped to be able to 
protect these divers by its partial prohibition of 1902, but the desired results 
were not attained. 
‘The Italian sponge fishers live at Terra del Greco, Porto Empedocle, Trapani, 
Naples, Palermo, and Catania, using mostly the dragnet and more rarely the 
hook, and fishing on the banks of Lampedusa, Linosa, Pantellaria, Ustica, the 
Aolian and Ajgadian islands, along the coasts of Apulia and Calabria, Sicily, 
and Sardinia, and especially the coast of Tunis. In 1887 Captain Leonardo 
Angugliaro, from Trapani, discovered the extensive sponge banks of Lampedusa, 
and in the following year Greek fishermen with diving apparatus, under the 
Greek and Turkish flags, appeared there, to continue in Italy what they had 
