THE FLORIDA COMMERCIAL SPONGES. 
By HUGH M. SMITH, M. D., 
Assistant in Charge of Inquiry respecting Food-Fishes, United States Fish Commission. 
The sponge fishery of the United States presents the interesting antithesis of an 
industry restricted to a single State and a product perhaps more generally employed 
and having a wider range of usefulness than any other article yielded by the American 
fisheries. There is scarcely a civilized habitation in the country in which the sponge 
is not in almost daily use. Besides its very general employment for toilet purposes, 
it is utilized in many other ways — in the arts, trades, and professions, and in domestic 
life — the mention of which would prove tedious. 
In this paper it is not expected that much new or original information concerning 
sponges will be presented. All that is contemplated is to direct attention to certain 
aspects of the sponge industry, with a view to place it on a sounder basis. The 
special topics considered are the distribution, form, and peculiarities of the different 
species ; their present and past abundance; the extent and causes of the decrease in 
the supply, as evidenced by a diminished annual catch ; the protection of sponge- 
grounds; the cultivation of sponges on grounds now barren; and the increase of the 
productiveness of the industry by the introduction of some of the best grades of 
European sponges. In order to make the discussion of these subjects clearer to the 
sponge interests, it is desirable to briefly notice the zoological status of sponges and 
their methods of reproduction and growth. Beference is also made to the sponge 
legislation of Florida. Illustrations of the leading grades of marketable sponges are 
presented; these are based on specimens collected in Florida by the writer. 
THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF SPONGES. 
Although for many years the status of sponges — whether animal or vegetable — was 
in dispute, the time has long since passed when the right of the sponges to be placed 
in the animal kingdom was established. Even the propriety of assigning the sponges 
to a position higher than the lowest animals — the protozoa — is now conceded, and 
they are put either in a subkingdom of their own (Porifera) or in a subkingdom 
(Coelenterata) with the corals, gorgonians, sea-feathers, jelly-fishes, etc. 
The sponge in a natural state is a very different-looking object from what we see 
in commerce. The entire surface is covered with a thin, slimy skin, usually of a dark 
color, perforated to correspond with the apertures of the canals. The sponge of 
commerce is in reality only the home or the skeleton of a sponge. The composition 
of this skeleton varies in the different kinds of sponges, but in the commercial grades 
it consists of interwoven horny fibers, among and supporting which are spiculse of 
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F. C. B. 1897—15 
