MY TREASURE GROUNDS
Are you tired? No? Well, that is no great wonder. It is ever so much
easier to glide through the water on the broad back of a great fish than
to ride horseback, or in a car.
My sails or fins flap quietly to and fro, the water parts readily to
make us a path, no rough winds blow away your hat, there is no danger
way down here that a boat will bang against us, and roll you off into a
cavern or a cave.
Now I am taking you into deeper water, which still is not so very deep,
but I want to show you some other strange things in the world I live in.
Here we go sailing in and out of rocks, but do not be alarmed, I know
them all. Perhaps you wonder what it is that we keep pressing against,
something soft and smooth that sends extra sprays of water over us. What
can it be?
Well, now, put on your thinking-cap. What does your mother wash the
baby with? What does Michael wash the carriage with? And what is that
object in the wire holder in the bath-tub?
"Ah, a sponge!" you exclaim. Yes, and here is where they grow. "What,
sponges grow?" you ask. Certainly. And just as with the coral, it took
Folks a long time to find out whether sponges were plants, shrubs, or
insects.
Now it is decided that the sponge is an animal growth. And the same as
with coral, the tiny creature that it starts from dies, and out from the
skeleton, or frame, branches the sponge that sometimes grows very large,
and sometimes is of a kind that remains small. One may be as big as a
mop, others no larger than an egg.
Down in the blue Mediterranean Sea are found the best sponges that grow.
They are called "horny sponges," and grow in great masses, fine, yet
tough and durable. A sponge from the Mediterranean, called the "Turkey
sponge," will cost three times as much as a coarser, more brittle one
from other waters. They are porous, or full of little holes and hollows.
We fishes like to bang against the sponges and feel the sudden spray
dash over us. Water we have all around and about us, but a shower-bath
is not as common a thing.
When you buy a sponge, it is round, flat, or cone-shaped. Now see what
they look like under water. Here is a little tree, you say. Oh, no, it
is only a mass of sponges piled together and branching out as they grow.
Here are fans, arches, tiny caves, and many different shapes forming a
sponge-garden. Queer, isn't it? Oh, lots of things are queer until you
learn about them.
Would you like to see how I wash myself? Don't laugh so loud, you might
scare the fishes. I know very well that it seems to you as if I was
washing or bathing all the time, but there! Some kind of a water-bug has
plumped right down onto my head, and left a lot of sticky sand on it,
that the water does not wash away.
Now don't be alarmed. I won't let you be swept from my back. I am only
going to wash my head. See me swim directly under this mass of sponge,
swaying out from a rock. There will be no bits of sand clinging to me
after I have been sponged a few moments.
Here is a sponge that looks as if almost as large as your sun when it
rises out of the water, but if you squeeze that fellow dry--the sponge,
not the sun--it will not begin to be the size it is now. You could press
it into a bowl of moderate size when dry, but then take it to the pump
or the faucet, fill it with water, and my, what a balloon!
Sponges were once called "worm-nests," and were thought to be a mere
kind of seaweed. But looked at under the sea, it would be known at once
that they are neither nest nor weed.
Once in awhile sponges seem to spring directly up from the mud without
anything to cling to, but generally they are fastened to rocks or large
stones, and spread out and out from them. Here they look so much like a
kind of herb, that Folks who make a study of things in nature, and are
called naturalists, for a long time took them to be a kind of sea-plant,
and for years it was a puzzle as to just what they were.
All are full of pores or layers of small cells, and some are quite
pretty from having a fringe about the cells like eyelashes. There are
others curiously shaped, looking like coral sprays, and here and there
they look like helmets; then there is another form that seems to have
long fingers running out, and is called "mermaid's gloves."
The form called "Venus flower-basket," large and basket-shaped, might
answer for a mermaid's work-basket, and hold her thimble, scissors, and
thread. You had better take care! A mermaid may be near this very
moment, and hear you laughing. And remember, she could spin you round
from one end of the sea to another, then leave you high and dry on a big
rock in the middle of the ocean.
Now, on what do sponges feed? Dear sakes, as if they fed on anything!
Yet they do. Although they branch and bunch out in the forms described,
yet they do not roam about, but only float or swim out as far as they
can stretch themselves while firmly fastened to a rock. Here they take
in specks or particles that float through the water; they pass through
the open pores of the body, and answer for food. The water constantly
passing through them serves to refresh and keep them round and healthy.
Here we come to a perfect thicket of sponges, and see the fishes playing
"tag" all around and about them. There! that sly little fish, like a
salt water pickerel, nipped the tail of that great clumsy
porpoise--porpus--so hard, I heard the big fish grunt. The teeth of a
pickerel are fearfully long and sharp.
Oh! Oh! What is that most beautiful thing we see shining with a faint,
sweet glow, down at the bottom of the sea? It is in plain sight, nestled
in the heart of a conch-shell. It is round, has a milk-like murkiness,
yet pinky, changing lights like tiny stars, that glint and gleam as you
look upon it.
Now believe me! Of all the treasures of the sea I have told you of or
shown you, this is far and away the most precious.
It is a pearl. Only once in a great while will so perfect and so
valuable a gem be found near my deep water home. And although we are not
so very far east, yet it would be called an "Orient," or an "Eastern
pearl."
Perhaps it has floated in its polished pink bed from a far eastern sea.
I told you a little while ago that I must explain what an oyster had to
do with Folks that sported too many jewels, and why it might be amused
at the sight.
Did you know that inside of an oyster-shell grew the lovely, costly
pearls that Folks will give a great deal of money for? Why, Queen
Victoria of England had a Scotch pearl that cost two hundred dollars.
Queens and princes, rich Folks, jewellers, and dealers in precious
stones, will give great sums of money for necklaces, brooches, or rings
that have in them the precious Oriental pearls.
I had to listen very hard to find out what I did about pearls. But I
found that they have been known, talked of, and written about, almost
ever since the beginning of the world.
Oyster-beds are generally much nearer the shore than most kinds of
shells. It is said to be when an oyster gets restless or uneasy that a
strange substance enters the edge of the shell, and after a time a pearl
is formed. And while many pearls are found in oyster-shells, they also
are often found fastened to the pink bosom of a conch-shell.
There are black pearls of much value, but though rare, they are never
half as beautiful as a white or pink one. Some pink pearls are very
lovely, and when large-sized, are also very expensive.
The pearl we see lying here is a splendid white one, and my! the money
it would bring! Pick up that shell, carry it with you to a jeweller, and
see the dollars the fair round gem will bring to your purse. You could
buy yourself beautiful clothes, or a pony, or could have with it a fine
party, flowers, favors, treat and all.
What? Don't dare to? Oh, me, me, what a little coward! I can't pick it
up very well. If I took it in my mouth, down my throat it would go. If I
tried to catch it up with a fin, over into the water it would bounce.
Never mind. Look at the sweetly beautiful conch-shell, with the
splendid gem resting so softly on its pink, polished side. And let me
tell you what I think.
The opinion of a fish, even a great lordly one, may not be worth much,
but to me that exquisitely lovely stone, reposing on that exquisitely
lovely shell, is a far more beautiful thing to look upon than the jewel
ever could be when fitted into the costliest setting of gold.
Now it is just as it was made, and I think that Whoever formed and set
that pearl knew more about real beauty and fitness, and what is simple,
natural, and very beautiful, than all the Folks and jewellers in the
world.
Look at that white splendor. Don't you agree with me?