A telegram from the Foreign Office adds:—At 4.9 p.m. H.M.8. Irresistible quitted the line, listing heavily, and at 5.50 sank, having probably struck a drifting mine. The Ocean also having struck mine sank in deep water.
The losses of ships were caused by mines drifting with the current encountered in areas hitherto swept clean and this danger will require special treatment.
The battleships Queen (18,000 tons) and Implacable (15,000 tons), which were despatched from England to replace ships' casualties in is operation, are due to arrive immediately, bringing the British Fleet up to its inal strength.
The French battleship Bouvet, 12,007 tons; was completed at Lorient in 1898 at a cost of £1,100.70. Her armament consisted of two Un., two 10.8in., eight 5.5in., eight 39in., and nineteen smaller guns, with two sub-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.