CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Enumeration of some of the various uses of marine products-Animals-Shells -Isinglass-Fish skins and leather-Fish scales-Various oils, etc.

Of the radiate animals, we have among the useful ones the edible bèche-de-mer or Holothuria (already described), the sea-eggs, sea-urchins, or sea-chestnuts (Echini), which are frequently used as food when full of spawn, and star-fish for manure.

Among those which are ornamental may be named the stony corals, the red "organ-pipe" coral (Tubipora musica), sea-fans and gorgonas, and madrepores.

The vast number of small marine animals, particularly the shell-fish and corals, are of extreme importance to the general economy of nature, acting as scavengers; inasmuch as they in the ocean, in the same manner with insects upon the earth, incessantly destroy, consume, and as it were metamorphose, an infinite variety of noxious, hurtful, or superfluous substances.

To man they are in so far serviceable that many of the mollusca, or naked soft worms, and the shell-fish are eatable, some forming a principal article of diet to many

navigators and inhabitants of seacoasts. A very beautiful purple dye was formerly procured to some extent from certain molluscs. Sepia and Indian ink are obtained from the peculiar dark fluid of the cuttle-fish. The gall of the carp is used in Turkey as a green paint and in staining paper. The byssus of certain species of Pinna affords a kind of brown silky fibre which may be worked up into useful articles. Many kinds of shells contain pearls. Red coral is an important article of trade, particularly in the East Indies. Several kinds of shells, either entire or divided, pass current as money in Africa, India, and other remote nations. From portions of shells the North American Indians made their wampum-a sort of currency which serves the purpose of records. Many savage people use mussel, snail, oyster, and tortoise shells for drinkingvessels, spoons, etc. In regard to works of art, the motherof-pearl oyster and many mussel and snail shells are cut like onyx into cameos, and used for making buttons. The cuttle-fish bone is employed by artists and workmen. Sponge serves a variety of domestic purposes. Madrepore is employed for paving and building on the coasts of the Red Sea. Numerous shells and corals are burnt for lime. Some large thin shells are used as glass in the south of China and in India. Shells are among the most common ornaments of savage nations; and shell flowers, shell earrings, shell brooches and bracelets are worn even by females in the more civilized countries.

It is not as nourishment only that fish is made subservient to commerce. The preparation of isinglass affords to some countries the means of extensive trade and speculation. Sole skins, if clean, sweet, well prepared, and dried, can be used as a fining agent, and are sometimes employed in households to clarify coffee. It may be

mentioned that the stomach, the intestines, and also the skins of different kinds of fish can be used as isinglass after being cut and submitted to the action of boiling water, and then pressed, which gives the substance the appearance of thin leaves, resembling parchment. The skins of many are utilized. Leather is largely made from seal and porpoise skins, and also prepared from scaled fish by the North American Indians; eel leather is used for whips and flail thongs; shagreen or shark leather, used by the Alaska Indians for boot soles; there is also a sturgeon leather. The skins of Diodon are used in making helmets, and the stomach membranes of the halibut, in Greenland, for window transparencies. Parchment is made from the viscera of seals, and used by the Eskimo for clothing, bags, and blankets. They also employ the pharynx of the seal or walrus as leather for boot soles. Beluga leather is dressed as kid, sole, harness, boot, mail bags, belts, and pattern leather, etc. Walrus leather is used by the Eskimos for harness, tables, thongs, seal-nets, and in Europe for covering polishing wheels. The Eskimos also use sea-lion leather to cover bidarkas, and for garments and beds.

Oil is largely obtained from fish for medicine and use in manufactures. From the mammals we obtain-seal oil, in its various grades, used for lubricating; sea-elephant and sea-lion oil; dugong oil; oil from the body of whales, grampuses, and porpoises, employed in the arts, for lubricating, painting, etc.; black fish and porpoise-jaw oil, used in lubricating fine machinery, watches, clocks, and guns; grampus oil and sperm oil, used in lamps, for lubricating, as an emollient in medicine, for lip-salves, and in the manufacture of spermaceti. The fish oils comprise, among others, sun-fish oil and cramp-fish oil, used by fishermen for the cure of rheumatism; cod oil and cod-liver oil, used in

medicine, as a food and emollient, and in lubricating; hake and haddock-liver oil, used in adulterating cod-liver oil; pollock oil, used by the Shetlanders for illumination; menhaden oil, used in currying leather, in rope-making, for lubricating, as a paint oil, and exported to Europe for the manufacture of soap and for smearing sheep. 'Herring oil, white fish oil, sturgeon oil, shark oil, and many other oils obtained from fishes, and a large part of the seal and black whale oil are known indiscriminately as fish oil, and employed for various manufacturing uses. Oulachan oil is used by the Indians of the north-west coast of America, for food and illumination. Shark and skate liver oil, including the "Rouen oil," made on the coast of Normandy from the liver of Raia aquila, R. pastinaca, and R. batis, are used like cod-liver oil.

The bones and débris from the menhaden, herring, cod, and other fisheries form fish guano. The scales of fish are used in ornamental work, in manufacturing flowers and other fancy articles. Among those so employed are the scales of parrot-fishes (Scaride and Labrida), of mullets (Mugilida), of sheep's-head, etc. (Sparida), of drum and bass fish (Scianida), of Serranida and perches (Percida and Labracida), of Lobotidæ, of tarpum (Elopida), of herrings (Clupeida), of Cyprinidæ; of eels, used in the north of Europe to give a pearly lustre in ornamental house-painting; of gar pikes, used by Indians for arrow tips; also those of sturgeons, for implements. Pearl white, or essence d'Orient, prepared from the scales of Alburnus lucidus and other Cyprinide and Clupeidæ, is used in making artificial pearls. The shagreen of the trigger-fish (Balistes) is employed in polishing wood; that of sharks as leather and for polishing purposes, particularly in the manufacturing of quill pens.

CHAPTER II.

SPONGE AND THE SPONGE FISHERIES.

Description of sponges-Two scientific divisions, common and fine-Commercial grades-Distribution of sponges-Cup-shaped and fistular sponges -American sponge fisheries-Mode of procuring and cleaning them.

SPONGE is a substance with which almost every one is familiar, as there are but few families or individuals living in civilized communities who do not find occasion to use it for a great variety of purposes. The article is so very useful that a large number of inconveniences would arise if it could not be obtained. What would the surgeon do? what the traveller? what the housekeeper? And yet most of those who use sponges in an indefinite variety of ways all their lives never stop to consider how they are formed, whether they are plants or animals, or what are their history and habits.

Sponges consist of a framework or skeleton, coated with gelatinous matter, and forming a non-irritable mass, which is connected internally with canals of various sizes. The ova are very numerous, and present in appearance the form of irregular-shaped granules, derived from the gelatinous matter, which grow into ciliated germs, and, falling at maturity into the small canals, are then expelled by the orifices. When alive, the body is covered by a gela