fibrous tissue coated with a semi-gelutinous substance, a thread of water is incessantly escaping, which, having carried life into each cell, is expelled by a contractile movement. This substance disappears after the death of the polypus, which, when putrifying, disengages ammonia. Nothing is then left but the horny or gelutinous fibres, forming the domestic sponge, which takes a russet tinge, and is used in various ways, according to its elasticity, permeability, or resistance to maceration.
These polypes adhere to rocks, to shells of molluscs, and even to the stalks of hydrophytes. They garnish the smallest crevices, some extending outwards, others close or hanging down like corals. I told Conscil that these sponges are fished for in two ways, by a drag or by hand. The latter method is preferable, for the divers take care of the tissue of the polype, and this gives the commodity greater value.
The other zoophytes which live near the sponges are chiefly medusæ of a beautiful species. Molluscs were represented by the varieties of calmar, which, according to Orbigny, are peculiar to the Red Sea, and the reptiles by the virgata turtle belonging to the Cheloniæ genus, which furnishes our table with such delicate and wholesome food.
The fish were numerous and often remarkable. The nets of the Nautilus were frequently drawn, and we found rays of a reddish brick colour, mullet, gobies, blennies, balista, hammer-fish, and a thousand other fish common to the oceans Which we had already traversed. On the 9th of February the Nautilus was in the broadest part of the Red Sea, which is between Souakin on the west and Quonfodah on the east coast, a distance of ninety miles.
At noon Captain Nemo came upon the platform, where
