stice Campbell and a special jury, when a verdict was found
for the Crown, subject to the opinion of the Court of Queen's Bench upon
a special case, which proved, however, confirmatory of the original
decision.

On the 30th of July, 1851, the official Report on the Forest was issued.
It gives us the dates of three grants of land made this spring for school
purposes, situated at Viney and Blakeney Hill, and at Ruerdean Woodside.
It also bears fresh testimony to the satisfactory working of the Act of 1
& 2 Vict., c. 43, for regulating the opening and working of mines and
quarries, the litigation to which they had formerly given rise under the
ill-defined and objectionable customs which had so long prevailed having
almost entirely ceased. The actual amount annually paid to the Crown
during the last six years was stated to be 4,281 pounds 17s. 4d., besides
the profit made by the sale of pit-timber. Royalties and tonnage-dues
were its chief sources, although arrears of minimum or dead rent had
accumulated to the extent of 12,805 pounds 8s. 2.5d.--payment having been
refused in some cases on the plea that at certain times no minerals had
been raised. Gales of coal had been granted to Cousin's Engine,
Beaufort, and Fox Hole; and during the previous year 335,687 tons of coal
and 80,531 tons of iron mine had been raised. This autumn arrangements
were made for felling 553 loads of timber in the Forest, and 177 loads in
the High Meadow Woods, for the use of the navy, under the Queen's
sign-manual of the 7th of May.

In the following year (1852) there were two grants of land for
educational and ecclesiastical purposes; one piece was for the site of a
school at the Hawthorns, and the other for a parsonage attached to the
new church at Lydbrook, which was consecrated on the previous 4th of
December by Dr. Ollivant, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, acting for Dr. Monk,
who was unable to attend.

During the months of April and June of this year the Right Hon. T. F.
Kennedy, who, in October, 1851, had been appointed Chief Commissioner,
visited the Forest of Dean, and was much struck with its fine character
and great capabilities. Impressed with the conviction that it might be
brought to yield a larger return to the Crown, he sought the advice of
Mr. Brown, well known in Scotland as a surveyor of woods, who inspected
the several plantations, and suggested that every encouragement should be
given to the extension of railways through the Fo