DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

SUBMARINE WARFARE. 221
Listertief steerage buoy. Those bound for the Ems
make directly for that river.
3. From the Listertief buoy on in the very interest of
the ship's safety unconditionally obligatory pilot service
is prescribed. Pilots will be furnished from the pilot
steamer lying there. The pilot's directions are to be
followed unconditionally. Whoever fails to do so or
attempts to steer for the German bay without a pilot
incurs great danger.
4. If on account of bad weather or other causes the
ships can not get a pilot they must drop anchor or put
back to sea.
5. Outgoing steamers receive their pilots and other
instructions from the port authorities.
6. The same rules apply to foreign warships.
7. Navigation by sail to and from the harbors of the
German Bay of the North Sea is totally stopped because
of the danger therein involved.
NACHRICHTEN FUR SEEFAHRER.
[No. 62—Berlin, November 10, 1914. p. 1029.]
3161/14. Navigation of the North Sea—Announcement.
A IV. 11563, November 9, 1914.
The British Government on November 2, 1914, issued,
on the basis of a false accusation that Germany had, with
hospital ships and merchant vessels under a neutral flag,
laid mines and reconnoitered in the North Sea, a notice
to mariners sailing to and in the North Sea, which recommended
to vessels, on the pretext of danger from mines
in the North Sea, to pass through the Channel, the Downs,
and along the English coast and warned them against
sailing through the North Sea and around the Orkney
and Shetland Islands.
In contradiction of this it is pointed out that the
waters of the Northern North Sea, including the line running
from the Hebrides across the Faroe islands to Iceland,
the waters along the Norwegian Coast and in the
Skagerrak, are generally so deep as to exclude all laying
of mines. On the other hand it is known that in the
South of the North Sea and in the Channel a number of
mines, and, as has been ascertained, mines of English and
French origin, are drifting about that have not been
deadened, and that at many places of the course along
the English Eastern Coast recommended by England
mines have been laid of which several were run into
adrift lately.
The course recommended by England, through the
Channel, the Downs, and along the English East Coast is
therefore very dangerous to shipping, while the course
through the North of the North Sea is free of mines and
therefore free of danger.
(See N. F. S. 14-262.)