58 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. (CHAP. IL 
who heartily seconded my colleague and myself in our 
work and sympathised with us in our keen interest 
in the curious results of the few trials at great depths 
which we had it in our power to make, made the 
experience, a very novel one to us, certainly as 
tolerable as possible. 
The ‘Lightning’ left Pembroke on the 4th of 
August, 1868, and arrived at Oban on the evening 
of the 6th. At Oban Dr. Carpenter, his son Herbert, 
and I joined, and, after having taken observations 
for the chronometers, completed coals and water ; 
and being otherwise ready, we left Oban on the 8th 
of August, anchored on that evening in Tobermory 
Bay, and after a gusty passage through the Minch 
we reached Stornoway on the evening of the 9th. 
At Stornoway we were received by Sir James and 
Lady Matheson with a courteous hospitality, which 
on many subsequent occasions has made us leave 
their island kingdom with regret and return to it 
with pleasure. We took in as much coal as we 
could carry, stowing as much as was safe in bags 
on the deck, set up a dredging derrick over the 
stern, took final observations, and departed to the 
northward on the morning of the 11th. We took a 
haul or two the same afternoon in from 60 to 100 
fathoms, about 15 miles to the north of the Butt of 
the Lews, to try our dredging-tackle and donkey- 
engine and to trace the limits of the shallow-water 
species. All the appliances worked well, but the 
dredge brought up few animal forms, and all of them 
well-known inhabitants of the seas of the Hebrides. 
The next day we were met by a breeze from the N.E., 
which continued for three days with such force that 
