The colonies are usually from sixty to one hundred feet beneath the sea's surface.
Some expert authorities have fathered the assertion that about thirty years is required for coral stock to develop into full size; yet the Sicilian coral bank is divided into ten sections, one of which is finished every year, and at the end of the decade the first bank yields full-sized stock.
Pietro Moncadi of Palermo, said to be the largest dealer in Italian coral, during a recent visit to New York, reported that the demand for high grade red coral leads the supply. Many beds off the Italian coasts are exhausted and there is much prospecting off Malta, Malabar, and East African coasts, at great expense and, so far, with very small reward. Signor Moncadi made the statement that the United States buys the finest red coral, and the producers who possess the highest grade have to seek no other market.
The home of the coral industry is Italy, where there are about sixty work shops, with about six thousand employees. Torre del Greco is the centre of both the coral-fishing and the coral-working industries. The coral-workers pierce and string pieces of coral of all shapes and
