Why Not Sponges From Pacific Island Waters?

Pacific Island Waters?

SOME people, it appears, still yearn for bath sponges, even when they cost (as they do in Australian cities to day) anything up to £3 per ounce. And this yearning might be translated into hard cash for Pacific Islands dwellers because sponges (the fibrous skeleton of a sea creature) are found .in South Pacific waters, but have as yet been virtually unexploited commercially.

First-grade sponges have always come from the eastern Mediterranean, Florida or the West Indies. Before the war they sold in Australia, according to size and fineness, from a shilling or two to about £l. During the war, about 75 per cent, of the Mediterranean sponge-fishing fleets which were operated largely by Greeks, were destroyed by enemy action and at the same time' the sponge beds in the West Indies were closed because of a marine blight; furthermore, in 1942, heavy floods in the Mississipi brought down silt which almost completely destroyed the beds off the Florida coast.

In 1938, 25,000 pounds weight of sponges were brought into Australia but only 700 pounds came in in 1944-45 —most of these for industrial uses. Small toilet sponges, weighing about a quarter-ounce, are now selling in Sydney shops for 26/-.

Over £l,OOO worth of sponges for com mercial purposes were imported into Aus tralia during 1943-44 from French Oceania —for water filtration and similar uses; and recently 400 pounds weight of sponges were sent from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands to Great Britain as a trial shipment. A G & E official stated'that a similar quantity could be obtained each week from the G & E Colony if the demand warranted it.

There is more in marketing sponges, of course, than merely fishing them up from the ocean floor. The crude sponge has to be expertly cleaned, trimmed and bleached before it is fit to accompany my lady to her bath.

Only the coaser variety of sponge, in expertly treated, has as yet come from the Pacific, but there appears to be an unlimited field there —and a lucrative one if prices which sponges are now bringing in world markets are any indication. (Based on an article in the “Sydney Morning Herald.”)