176 
It will be observed that the Dean Forest Commissioners 
made no provision in the Award to protect the drainage level 
or Horse Road when it rested upon any iron-ore deposits be- 
longing to a proprietor immediately in the deep, as in the case 
of No. 1 already cited. One of the Counsel for the plaintiff 
argued in very forcible terms that the limits of each property 
below the water level should be determined by a perpendicular 
line, which in the diagram is marked as the ‘assumed deep 
boundary line.” This would have given a triangular area of 
iron mineral, represented by A, to the proprietor No. 2, although 
under the Commissioners’ Award it belonged to No. 1. 
In evidence the writer pointed out that as the angle of 
depression of the iron-ore measures below the horizon was very 
variable, such a definition of the deep boundary line would have 
an injurious effect upon mining generally in the Forest of 
Dean, being, in fact, against the terms of the Commissioners’ 
Award. For example, at the Oakwood Heading above the 
horizontal line at a, above the triangular area A, the angle 
is 20°, but if it were 55°, as exhibited at Oakwood Heading 
at a’, above the line and triangular area B, then the assumed 
deep boundary line would intersect the Underedge at c, or at a 
considerable depth below the drainage level, and the triangular 
area at A would have been changed in form and occupied that 
at B, taking away a large area of mineral merely to support 
the Oakwood Heading above it, belonging to proprietor No. 2, 
and further that when any Geological contortions of the strata 
occurred, such as were experienced at the St. Annals Iron Mine 
(see diagram No. 2), then in certain extreme cases the triangular 
area of mineral at B would be exchanged for that at C, and thus 
the whole of the property belonging to proprietor No. 1 would 
be entirely lost if such an argument were to hold good, because 
a perpendicular boundary line let fall from the East side of 
the Oakwood Heading situated at a” above the “‘assumed deep 
boundary line,” would intersect the Underedge at the point d 
below the Level Horse Road in Parkhill Iron Mine. 
Thus it was proved that such legal opinions were not only 
in conflict with the Commissioners’ Award itself, but also with 
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