Sponges grow in the bottom of the sea at different depths. They are obtained by divers who make a business of gathering them. The best sponges are called the Turkish sponge, which are very soft and velvety, and may be bleached until they are nearly white by subjecting them to the action of certain acids. The divers become very expert, but they do not have the modern equipments of a diving suit. The Syrian divers in the Mediterranean go down naked with a rope attached to their waists and a stone attached to the rope to cause them to sink, together with a bag for carrying the sponges. They have trained themselves until they can remain under water from a minute to a minute and a half, and in that time can gather from one to three dozen sponges. The ordinary depth to which they descend is from eight to twelve fathoms. But a very expert diver will go down as far as forty fathoms. The better class of sponges are said to grow in the deeper waters. The coarse inferior sponges are called the Bahama sponge. This sponge is of a peculiar shape, growing more like a brush, with long bristly fiber. The trade in sponges is quite large. The consumption in Great Britain alone amounts to about $1,000,000 per annum. The sponge as an animal possesses many advantages over his more aristocratic neighbor, man. He breathes but he has no lungs, and therefore cannot have pneumonia. He digests his food, but he has no stomach, and therefore never has dyspepsia, gastritis, or any of the many ailments that belong to that much abused organ. He has no intestines, and therefore cannot have appendicitis or Asiatic cholera or any of the long train of diseases incident to those complicated organs. He has no nervous system--oh, happy sponge!--therefore he cannot have nervous prostration, hysteria, or epilepsy. He has no use for doctors, and therefore has no unpleasant discussions with his neighbors about the relative merits of the different schools of medicine. If he has any predilections in the way of "pathies" we should say that he is a hydropath. While he is a great drinker, he is not at all convivial--he drinks only water, and takes that in solitary silence. He sows all his wild oats when he is very young, while he has the freedom to roam at will. He soon tires of this, however, for he selects the rock that is to be the foundation of his future home and there settles down for life, "wrapt in the solitude of his own originality." He is not troubled with wars or rumors of wars. His eyes are never startled or his nerves shaken by the scare headlines of yellow journalism. The one sensation of his life, if sensation he ever has, is when a great ugly creature of some Oriental clime comes down to his home and tears him away from his native rock, carries him to the surface, and there literally "squeezes the life out of him." He finally dies of the "grip," and here he sinks to the level of his more aristocratic neighbor.