THE ANIMAL, SPONGE. 



77 



" Millions of millions thus, from age to age, 

 With simplest skill and toil unwearyable, 

 No moment and no movement unimproved, 

 Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, 

 To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound, 

 By marvellous structure climbing towards the day. . 

 I saw the living pile 



ascend, 



The mausoleum of its architects, 

 Still dying upward as their labour 



closed. . . . 

 Frail were their frames, ephemeral 



their lives, 



Their masonry imperishable. All 

 Life's needful functions, food, exertion, 



rest, 



By nice economy of Providence 

 Were overruled to carry on the process 

 Which out of water brought forth 

 solid rock." 



And now we arrive at the 

 last of the valuable fisheries in 

 which divers are concerned 

 that of the sponge. The ancients 

 recognised the fact that the 

 sponge exhibited vitality, but 

 were rather undecided as to 

 whether it should be counted 

 animal or vegetable. R-oudelet 

 the friend of the celebrated 

 Rabelais, whom the merry curate 

 of Meudon designated under the 

 name of Rondibills himself a 

 physician and naturalist of 

 Montpellier, long promulgated 

 the idea that these productions 

 belonged to the vegetable king- 

 dom. Linnaus late in life 

 withdrew the sponges from among the vegetables, for he had satisfied himself, in short, 

 that they fairly belonged to the animal kingdom. Sponges live at the bottom of the sea in 

 from 500 to 1,250 fathoms of water, among the clefts and crevices of the rocks, always 

 adhering and attaching themselves, not only to inorganic bodies, but even growing on algae 

 and animals, spreading, erect, or pendent, according to the body which supports them and 

 their natural habit. 



Figuier tells us that all naturalists are now satisfied of the animal nature of sponges, 

 although they once were thought to represent the lowest and most obscure grade of 



SPONGE, GROWING. 



