302 
ON SPONGES. 
BY EGBERT PATTERSON, F.R.S. 
KX 
S ponges, especially the sponges of commerce, form the 
subject of the present paper. It is intended to notice, 
though very briefly, some of the opinion - formerly entertained 
of their natm’e and affinities ; to state the views which now 
And acceptance among naturalists ; and then, regarding them 
as articles of trade, to say something of the mode in which 
they are collected, and the extent of the commerce to which 
they give rise. 
What is a sponge ? Is it more properly an animal or a 
vegetable production ? seem to be questions, respecting which 
a great variety of opinion has prevailed. If we go back so 
far as the time of Aristotle, we And he speaks of it in one 
place as a stationary or rooted animal, but elsewhere he seems 
to regard it as a production intermediate between the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms, for Nature,^^ he says, passes con- 
tinuously from things without life to animals, through things 
which live yet are not animals, so that they appear to difler 
very little when viewed in connection."’^ 
Leaving those speculations of the ancients, and coming to 
more modern times, we are told by Geralde, author of the 
Herbal, published in 1578, There is found growing upon 
the rockes near unto the sea, a certain matter wrought together 
of the fume or froth of the sea, which we call sponges."’^ 
Pay, in 1686, considered them as of all marine vegetables 
the most nearly related to the fungi, being composed of a sub- 
stance like compacted wool, perforated with tubes and holes, 
and covered over with a certain membranaceous mucilage. 
Linnaeus at flrst placed sponges among the algae ; but in the 
twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae,^"’ published in 1767, 
they were classed among Zoophytes. 
To Dr. R. E. Grant, the eminent Professor of comparative 
anatomy and zoology in University College, London, we are 
indebted for those Observations and Experiments on the 
Structure and Functions of the Sponge,^^* that gave a higher 
and more philosophic interest to the study of their nature and 
affinities. He became convinced that they are not produced 
Edinburgh Philosoiohical Journal, yoI. xiii., xiv. 
