THE NORTH SEA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 57, 23 October 1914, Page 4

THE NORTH SEA.

Between the North of Scotland and the coast of Norway are the Shetland Island, regarded by many as the "stopper of the North Sea bottle." The Orkney Islands, near the Scottish coast, and the Shetlands play, \\iih their numerous harbours, a very important part in the naval strategy of the North Sea. In the northern part of the Shetland group is a big harbor called Balta Sound, with its opening facing south-east, and protected by a couple of small islands. This is a splendid shelter for warships, and s correspondent of the London Daily Graphic recently brought somo curious news back when he returned from a visit to the islands. He reported; that a German gunboat seemed to have taken up a permanent station in Balta Sound. He wrote that the Germans had for some time been devoting an extraordinary amount of attention to the bottle-stopper group of islands, and the frequent presence of their warships there was not to be explained by the existence of German fishing interests in the Shetland waters. He proceeded to explain the persistent presence of the German warship by stating that she was making soundings in order to place on German naval charts some shoals which are well known to the British authorities. These shoals, he says, were made by the repeated jettisoning of stone ballast by ships which came to the islands for chrome iron ore, and they are very dangerous to big ships unless their exact positions are known. The writer continues that the people of the islands did not at all relish the presence of the gunboat, and the laird of the district, under whose windows the survey operations proceeded, made a protest. But he was laughed at by the officers, who said that the British authorities did not mind, and asked him why he should bother about it.