ABUSE OF THE SCAPHANDER IN THE SPONGE FISHERIES. 541 
about 20 per cent and the seriously and slightly diseased reach annually 25 
per cent. The health of the sponge fishermen working with the hook and the 
dragnet is not exposed to the slightest injury. Only the naked divers run at 
times the danger of being attacked by a shark, but accidents of this kind are so 
rare that the fishermen do not consider them at all. The number of victims 
of the diving apparatus during the entire time of the abuse, i. e., during forty- 
two years, may be computed at 5,300 dead and 2,300 seriously disabled, while 
cases of slight diseases, transformed into serious ones with time and ending in 
death or chronic ailment, attack all divers after a longer or shorter period of 
work in the machines. 
For the future of the fishery as well as the welfare of the fisherman the 
diving machine is most harmful. It has been contended that the diver fishes 
without disturbing the bottom. This is not true. The heavy apparatus breaks 
and crunches the embryo sponges that lie in the path of the diver, and he searches 
over the entire sponge-bearing area. He takes, moreover, not only the largest 
and best sponges but also the small ones, arguing that what he does not take 
to-day will be taken by some one else to-morrow, and he fears also the cruel 
captain. The naked divers, on the other hand, are unable to take so many 
sponges or to harvest so closely, since their stay under water must be brief. 
Their season is from April to September. The hookers and the dragnet fisher- 
men work throughout the year, but it is to be noted that the dragnet can not be 
used either in total calm or in gale or storm, while calm or light breezes are 
necessary for the naked diver or the hooker. Thus it will be seen that each 
of these methods is subject to frequent and sometimes long-continued inter- 
ruption. Their harmlessness as compared with the scaphander is obvious. 
Experiments in artificial raising of sponges, although undertaken frequently, 
have never been successful and probably never will be on account of the very 
nature of things. When the sponges are torn from their roots a milky fluid 
flows from their elastic tissues, and it is this fluid that contains the germs of 
new sponges, which are carried along by the currents as the seeds of some plants 
are carried by the wind, until they attach themselves and grow. A sponge 
needs four to five years to reach maturity, after which it begins to die, having 
discharged its fluid with the germs. The sea currents, which the sponge needs 
for its growth, are an obstacle to artificial raising of sponges, for while they 
allow the microscopic embryo to fasten itself to a suitable spot, they do not 
permit cuttings selected for culture purposes to do so, and the equipment nec- 
essary to overcome this is easily destroyed by storms. Moreover, if it were 
possible for science to succeed in effecting this miracle, on a small scale and at 
a large expense, the result would be of no commercial value, as all the most 
effective conservation of the sponge beds would be accomplished by prohibition 
