Show Gathering Florida Sponges II One of the sights of the Florida reef is I the sponger He is generally a conch I from Conchtown Key West and devotes I his entire time to the business of fishing up the repulsive objects called sponges This is done chiefly with hook or spears I the boats drifting along until a sponge is sighted when it is hooked or speared and jerked from its stronghold upon the bottom When the water is too deep for the hooking process the sponger goes overboard and dives to the sponge by main force tearing it from the bottom The sponges taken from this section are not delicate toilet sponges being a different differ-ent grade and only used for coarse work They grow to a large size sometimes measuring three feet across and two high I and when active present anything but an j attractive appearance A good healthy I sponge looks as it comes to the surface I like a great beefs liver and the odor is I spongyno other word describes it When a load of these aromatic flowers of the ocean is secured they are taken down to Key West or may be cured on some of the keys This consists in allowing I al-lowing them to remain in the sun until thoroughly decayed and then treating them to repeated rinsings until the animal ani-mal matter is entirely removed They are then placed in the sun to bleach and in this stage are seen covering the fences in Conchtown Later they are subjected to several processes one of which in some I cases is sanding This is more common in the toilet sponge from the Mediterranean Mediterra-nean Shake one and you will find that quite a deposit of fine sand escapes This was not eaten or absorbed by the sponges when alive as you might suppose but is a process by which the weight of thb sponge is increased and as they sell by the pound the object is evident The tricks that the guileless sponge dealer is not up to are not worth chronicling chroni-cling Some time ago a young man was sent to a sponge locality to buy sponges for a firm who was going to manufacture a new article that required large quantities quan-tities and it was found that the young man paid as much for water and coral I rock as he did for sponge Better sponges are found in the Bahamas Baha-mas than on the Florida reef and the business busi-ness though in the hands of a few is a j valuable one The majority of people I have rather peculiar ideas regarding the sponge Some think it an insect others I a plant It is however a simple animal composed of many cells that are arranged I i in three layers the middle one secreting the lime or silex as the case may be that I goes to form the skeleton of the animal Cor Cincinnati Enquirer |