151 
At the Old Churchway Colliery, now abandoned, the 
partings between the Churchway seams were very thin, and at 
the Trafalgar Colliery the thick or double seam of Churchway 
coal existed as a single bed, extending over a considerable 
portion of its area. When the line passing through the 
boundary stones Nos. 27 and 28, marked on the Government 
map, and Cinderford iron furnaces, is approached from the 
workings in Crump Meadow Colliery, the bed which separates 
the two coals commences to thicken, rendering it difficult to 
work the lower and upper seams simultaneously. The increase 
in the thickness of the land of Argillaceous matter and shales 
separating the coal is gradual Southwards until we arrive at 
the New Fancy Colliery, where it amounts to 30ft. in thickness. 
At that colliery the Churchway seams have, according to 
“repute, an aggregate thickness of 4ft. 6in., 2.e., 2ft. 3in. each. 
It is also a curious circumstance that at this colliery the 
Lowery or Parkend Hill delf seam exists as a solid bed, but as 
it is traced Northward, or as far as Crump Meadow Colliery, it 
is divided into two distinct seams, so that in the two collieries 
mentioned we have an effect produced in different seams of 
coal of an opposite nature. So marked is this feature, that a 
little to the North of Crump Meadow Colliery the thickness of 
the debris between the Lowery seam is so great as to render it 
impossible to extract the two seams at the same time. 
If we suppose that a given thickness of Argillaceous 
_ matter had been deposited upon a seam of coal which had been 
previously formed, and that a certain area of it had been 
denuded, leaving the remainder as a slow inclined plane, or in 
a wedge form, down to the seam of coal, any forest of trees 
growing upon it at that period would also have been carried 
away; then the coal formed upon the thin or wedge end of any 
such inclined bed of Argillaceous matter must have been 
derived from the margins of such parts of the forests on higher 
ground not washed away, the vegetable matter of which must 
_ have descended and been sufficient to cover the denuded 
_ Argillaceous area, and also that part of the preceding formed 
seam of coal from which the Argillaceous matter had been 
