Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/209

Rh 150 feet above the Cat heath. He, knowing that true faults when found in one bed must necessarily affect all the beds above it up to the surface, and looking at this gap in the Thick coal as a fault, expected to meet a similar gap in the Brooch coal above. He of course, would never have recommended, therefore, any operations in search of this Brooch coal; and much of it might have been left behind if it had not been worked in the adjoining ground, and gradually followed by him over this space against his preconceived Opinion as to the possibility of its occurrence.

Another case was a dispute between two gentlemen arising from the uncertainty as to whether "rolls" or "swells" could be considered faults or parts of faults, which involved an expenditure of several hundred pounds, and left the question still undecided.

A. let to B. the Thick coal under a certain tract of ground. This ground was known to be traversed somewhere by a large fault, although its exact place in the ground was not known. The Thick coal was to be got, at a rent of so much per acre, up to the fault wherever it might be, allowance being made for so much of the coal as was injured or diminished by the fault, or by any branches or offsetts of the fault. It was found, that in addition to the fault, the Thick coal was traversed by two "swells," "rolls," or "horse backs," (see ante, p. 52,) which ran side by side across a part of the ground, diminishing the thickness of the coal by cutting out a certain portion of the lower beds of it. These "rolls," or long ridges, were traversed obliquely by the fault, and it was contended by B., that they were branches or offsets of the fault, and he claimed compensation accordingly.

A., however, contended that they had nothing to do with the fault, that they were mere ordinary accidents to be expected now and then in coal mining; and if compensated for at all, were to be so on totally different grounds from those put forward by B.

There can be no doubt that if we construe the agreement technically, according to the only possible accurate definition of the terms. A. was right. It is clear that the "rolls" or "swells" existed before the deposition of the upper beds of the Thick coal, while the fault was produced not only after the deposition of those beds, but subsequently to the formation of the whole of the Coalmeasures above them. The "rolls" were traversed by the fault just in the same way as all the other parts and portions of the whole formation were traversed by it, and as they existed long prior to the fault, clearly could not have been produced by it, or be anything like "branches or offsets of it." Owing, however, to the vague and uncertain use of the term fault, which is the "custom of the country," and the confusion of ideas in men's minds as to the real nature and origin whether of beds or faults, as much evidence, and from as respectable parties, was adduced on B.'s side as on A.'s, and the matter was ultimately compromised.

This matter is mentioned here thus prominently because it is clearly a practical point well worthy the attention of those engaged in all coal mining operations. Unless such common terms as that