PORT SERVICES AS REGARDS SHIPPING 43 
unless it is able to afford accessibility to vessels drawing 
30 ft. of water. The most up-to-date ports are making 
provision for vessels drawing up to 4o ft. 
Lighting and Buoyage. In England the lighting and 
buoying of harbour entrance channels devolves, in the 
majority of cases, on the Corporation of Trinity House— 
or, to give it its ancient designation, the Guild or Fraternity 
of the Blessed and Undividable Trinity—which is the 
recognized statutory body for dealing with the lighting 
and demarcation of the coastline. There are certain 
exceptions. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, for 
instance, supervise and control the buoying and lighting 
of the approaches to the port of Liverpool, including 
certain lighthouses stationed on the coast of North Wales, 
as far as Anglesea. The approaches to the port of Hull 
are similarly under the jurisdiction of the Humber Con- 
servancy. But the Thames follows the general rule and 
the navigable channel to London is buoyed and illuminated 
by Trinity House. 
In Scotland, the duties of lighthouse authority are 
discharged by the Commissioners of Northern Lights, 
whose headquarters are at Edinburgh. 
The lighthouse authorities of the United Kingdom 
have adopted the following uniform system of buoyage— 
Conical Buoys, with pointed tops, are used to denote the 
starboard hand, or that side of the entrance channel which 
is to the right of the mariner, either going with the main 
stream of flood tide, or entering a harbour, river or estuary 
from seaward. 
Can Buoys, with flat tops (truncated cones) are used 
to denote the port hand, which is the left-hand side of the 
mariner under the circumstances indicated. 
1 The jurisdiction of the Corporation of Trinity House, as the 
general lighthouse authority, and their general powers are set out 
in Part XI, Sections 634 et seq., of the Merchant Shipping Act. 
Section 653 of the same Act governs their relationship with various 
port and harbour authorities who maintain lighthouses, buoys, and 
beacons in England and Wales.