oi'ganisiDs with which the ancients had any acquaintance, and the 
modern popular idea of a sponge is perhaps but little in advance of 
that possessed by the Greeks, who used to place it under their 
helmets aud greaves to render the blows of the enemy less painful 
or dangerous, and for this purpose the finest kinds of sponge were 
used ; no doubt the same species as now known as Smyrna Sponge, 
tins species of sponge was called Achilleum. 
Ihe scientific history of the sponge commences with Aristotle, 
whose attention was probably called to this production from its 
amorphous shape, and the importance of its fisheries in the Medi- 
terranean and Eed Sea. 
Hie name of Sjionge is derived from ^iroyyog or (T(poyyog, which 
is a form of afiyyw, to squeeze ; thus Homer in his Illiad, 
bk. xviii — 
“ Then with a sponge the sooty workman dressed. 
His brawny arms embrowned and hairy breast.” 
The description of the Sponge by Aristotle, with some excep- 
tions, is tolerably exact. He says it is a “ rooted animal, and 
seems to have some sensation, for they report, that' it is torn away 
with difficulty, unless the attempt is made without warning.” In 
another place ho says, “ if the s|ionge jierceives a person about to 
pull it off it contracts itself, and is difficult to be taken away, and 
it does the same if there is much ivind or tide, in order that it may 
not be uprooted, but there are some persons who doubt this, as the 
inhabitants of Torone.” 
Its generation is spontaneous in the hollows of the rocks, and 
like other things in the sea is nourished by the mud, of which 
they are full when taken up. And in the canals or apertures of 
the siiouge are small crabs, which by oiiening and closing a sort of 
araneous net work over the apertures, do catch small fishes, open- 
ing it for their entrance, and closing it when they are gone in. 
There are three sorts of sponges — one of loose, another of close 
or comjiact texture, and the third, is very line and thick and very 
strong. The first is called Manon, loose, open, full of apertures ; 
the second is called Trage, (in Greek Tragos means, or the good,) 
and the sponges are so named from their rough texture ; and the 
third kind were called Achilleum, as before mentioned. 
It thus ai^pears that Aristotle was in favour of tlie animality of 
the sponges, but in othei' places he .speaks more guardedly, and in 
