Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/434

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��Popular Science Monthly

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��Raising Sponges on a Bed of Cement. The Sponges Like It

THINK of raising animals on slabs of cement placed on the bottom of the ocean! Of course we mean sponges; for sponges are merely simple animals. The Bureau of Fish- eries has discovered that sponges like cement better than coral rock, stakes or copper wire — like it so well in- deed that Ameri- can sponge culture has grown from practically noth- ing into a million- dollar industry.

Cement disks and triangles have been used with great success in the sponge beds of Cuba and the Ba- hamas. The sponges readily at- tach themselves to the firm, clean sur- face and thrive on it. The disks, about ten inches in diameter and one

and one-quarter inches thick, are com- posed of a mixture of one part of cement to three or four parts of sand. Two holes, about four inches apart, are made in each by thrusting an iron bar through the cement before it hardens. The disks can be made for less than two cents each.

The cuttings or seed sponges are at- tached to the disks in the manner shown in the photograph. A thin wire is generally strong enough to hold them securely to the disks. Each disk and triangle is numbered so that the Bureau of Fish- eries knows the growth and behav- ior of the cuttings at all times.

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���Sponges growing on tdangles of cement. Below: Thin wires attach the cuttings or seed sponges to the heavy cement disks

����The pail has a glass bottom through which the fisherman can locate the sponges

��Why Not Hooverize by Eating Lizards and Alligators?

MANY reptiles are edible and if sold under other names they would be palatable as well. Most of us eat diamond-back terrapin if we can afford it, and more of us enjoy green turtle soup. Yet both terrapin and turtles are reptiles. The eggs of the 'j,reen turtle are said to be more nutritious than hen's eggs. Along the Amazon and Orinoco rivers in South America, turtle eggs form an important food item.

That lizards may be eaten seems more strange. Yet they were so popular a food in the Ba- hama Islands that they have been hunted almost to extinction. Flor- ida alligators are said to be really delicious. Their appearance is certainly against them, but when carefully skinned, the flesh is no more repulsive looking than that of pork or veal. The taste has some- thing of that of both fish and meat. That Americans will ever eat snakes is more than doubt- ful. Just why they should be consid- ered more offen- sive than eels or snails is a gastro- nomic problem. But large snakes are so scarce in this country that we shall probably never be called upon to conquer our prejudice. The pig and the oyster, both of which we rel- ish, are unexcelled as scavengers by any reptile.

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