FOREST OF DEAN. 259 
distinctly laid down that all the male persons born 
and abiding in the Hundred of St. Briavel, and of 
the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who should 
have worked a year and a day in coal or iron mines 
within the Hundred, should be entitled to be registered 
as Free Miners; and that only Free Miners should 
have the exclusive right of having gales or works 
granted to them by the officer, called the gaveller, 
to open mines within the Hundred. Such gales or 
grants confer an interest in the nature of real estate, and 
are perpetual, subject to conditions for the payment 
of certain rents and royalties to the Crown. These 
royalties are fixed on the assumption that, after the coal 
or iron has been reached, the Crown is entitled to one- 
fifth of the net profit of working the mine. In case of 
dispute the royalty is settled by arbitration, and then 
remains fixed for twenty-one years. The Free Miner 
can sell his gale, and a large part of the mines in the 
district are not now held by Free Miners, but by persons 
who have purchased up the interests in their gales. 
Nearly the whole of the coal field in the Forest is now 
included in existing gales. 
Under this system the mining industry has grown 
up. The output of the coal mines now averages about 
900,000 tons a year, and that of the iron mines about 
160,000 tons. The royalties to the Crown produce 
annually about £12,000 for coal and £5,000 for iron. 
The existing gales of coal and iron are 260, of which 
not more than SO are worked. 
It would seem that the growth of population 
R 2 
