THE EUPLECTELLA 65 



permitted to have their full scope and action in our 

 lives, how can we grow up to the pattern to which 

 our Creator desires us to aspire ? 



We must not imagine that only an occasional 

 specimen of the glass sponge tribe has been found, 

 nor that they are limited to the floor of any particu- 

 lar ocean or sea. Before scientific explorers had 

 proper apparatus for deep-sea dredging, only a com- 

 parative few were known. But since the days of the 

 ' Challenger Expedition ' vast quantities have been 

 brought up from all the oceans, and from several seas 

 and bays. As an example, we have the authority of 

 Prof. A. Agassiz for the statement that sponges of 

 various kinds occur in abundance off the coast of 

 Florida, and that ' the trawl would constantly come 

 up filled with masses of both silicious and calcareous 

 sponges.' 



Directly connected with this subject arises the 

 question of the supply of silica (flinty matter) for 

 spicules and for the skeletons of the sponges ; for the 

 ordinary ocean water at the surface does not show 

 any great proportion of this element. Another ques- 

 tion presents itself quite as forcibly : what becomes 

 of the sarcode or flesh of these hosts of sponges and 

 of other forms of life which are in the oceans when 

 the creatures die ? In his Voyage of the Blake, Prof. 

 A. Agassiz says : * Judging from my own experience, 

 we must unquestionably refer this supply of silica to 

 the large fields of deep-sea silicious sponges, which 

 when dead and decomposed supply the spicules found 



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