58 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. [chap. ii. 



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 



