PROGRESS OF EXPERIMENTS IN SPONGE 
CULTURE: 
BY H. F. MOORE. 
From the Levant and the north coast of Africa, from the 
Bahamas and the Islands of the Caribbean, from our own waters 
of Florida, in fact from all the world’s sponge fisheries, there 
comes complaint of a yearly decreasing supply of sponges, at the 
same time that the principal markets of the world reflect an 
increasing demand. ‘The direct and immediate effect of the 
operation of these two factors is to increase the price: the sec- 
ondary effects are to stimulate endeavor in the fisheries on the 
one hand and, on the other, to withdraw from the sponge market 
those arts which are able to utilize a cheap and inferior substi- 
tute. 
It will be readily seen what must be the inevitable result of 
an increase in the effort made to find and take a species which 
even under the less strenuous endeavor of former years was un- 
equal in productiveness to the demand upon it. Unless new and 
extensive ground be discovered, the increase in zeal and numbers 
of the sponge fishermen can only result in the more speedy ex- 
haustion of the beds already known and to some extent exploited. 
With the increase in value, there goes pari passu not only a more 
careful gleaning from the beds of the larger and more desirable 
sizes, but a tendency to take all and any of whatever size found 
and at the same time to adopt methods of capture which are in 
themselves injurious. 
In the Mediterranean, the chief cause attributed for the de- 
crease in the yield of sponges is the use of artificial diving appli- 
ances in substitution for the primitive methods of fishing in 
vogue until within the last thirty years. It is stated that not 
only are many young sponges killed by the mailed boots of the 
divers but that the sponge bottoms are so thoroughly scoured of 
breeding sponges that few are left to reseed the depleted beds. 
Whatever may be the merits of the disputes which have arisen 
over the matter, the fact remains that the product of the Medi- 
terranean sponge beds has seriously decreased, the yield of the 
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