During sinking a 3.2m thick seam of coal had been struck at a depth of 81.3m, a decision was made to work this seam which as known as the " Gully Seam " instead.
12.
By this time the shafts at Wheldale had six insets : Warren House seam at 183m, Haigh Moor seam at 258m, Flockton Thick seam at 346m, Middleton Little seam at 400m, Silkstone seam at 436m and Beeston seam at 516m.
13.
Here, in the thousands of privately run mines, each burrowing into the thick seam of embalmed energy beneath these rolling prairies, men wearing head lamps climb down crude shafts where they use picks and crowbars to pry loose chunks of coal.
14.
Three longwall faces in the 3 ft thick seam were commenced, but the ensuing recession appears to have made it uneconomic and production ceased in 1927, all output then being concentrated back in the Top Hard seam, the workings of which were now becoming quite extensive.
15.
The flood water was unleashed when the crew's continuous mining machine tore into what was thought to be a thick seam but turned out to be a fragile wall adjoining the old Saxman mine, last worked 50 years ago and thought to have been 300 feet away.
16.
Bolckow Vaughan had already in 1848 " collected and shipped to Middlesbrough several thousand tons found on the coast between Redcar and Skinningrove "; Vaughan guessed that the same thick seams including the main bed might be found inland, in the Eston and Upleatham hills near the railway.
