by the madrepores, and the bases of which were turned in a short spiral; and finally, what I had never seen in its natural polype state—the common sponge.
The class of sponges, first in the group of polypi, has been precisely created by this curious product, the uses of which are indisputable. The sponge is not a vegetable, as some naturalists think it, but an animal of the lowest order, a polype inferior to the coral. There is no doubt of its being an animal, and one cannot even adopt the classification of the ancients, who put it between the plants and animals. I ought to mention that naturalists do not agree respecting the mode of organisation of the sponge. Some say it is a polypus; others, such as Mr. Milne-Edwards, that it is an isolated species, and unique.
The class of sponges include about 300 species, which are met with in many seas, and even in water-courses, where they received the name of “fluviatiles.” But they are chiefly found in the Mediterranean, in the Grecian Archipelago, on the coasts of Syria, and in the Red Sea. There the softest and most beautiful sponges grow, and rise to a value of six pounds sterling, such as the white Syrian sponge, Barbary sponge, &c. But as I could not hope to study these zoophytes in the Levant, from which we were separated by the Isthmus of Suez, I was obliged to content myself by examining them in the Red Sea.
I called Conseil to me while the Nautilus slowly passed by the beautiful rocks of the eastern coast at about ten yards below the surface.
Sponges of all shapes and sizes were there, pediculated, foliated, globulous, and digital. They justified the appellations of baskets, vases, distaffs, elk-horns, lion’s feet, peacock-tail, Neptune’s glove, which have been bestowed upon them by the fishermen, more poetical than naturalists. From the
