s, "Mr Speaker, the king commands this honourable
House to attend his majesty immediately in the House of Lords." This
formality originated in the famous attempt of Charles I. to arrest the
five members, Hampden, Pym, Holies, Hesilrige and Strode, in 1642.
Indignant at this breach of privilege, the House of Commons has ever
since maintained its right of freedom of speech and uninterrupted debate
by the closing of the doors on the king's representative.

BLACK SEA (or EUXINE; anc. _Pontus Euxinus_),[1] a body of water lying
almost entirely between the latitudes 41 deg. and 45 deg. N., but
extending to about 47 deg. N. near Odessa. It is bounded N. by the
southern coast of Russia; W. by Rumania, Turkey and Bulgaria; S. and E.
by Asia Minor. The northern boundary is broken at Kertch by a strait
entering into the Sea of Azov, and at the junction of the western and
southern boundary is the Bosporus, which unites the Black Sea with the
Mediterranean through the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles. The
100-fathom line is about 10 to 20 m. from the shore except in the
north-west corner between Varna and Sevastopol, where it extends 140 m.
seawards. The greatest depth is 1030 fathoms (1227 Russian fathoms) near
the centre, there being only one basin. The steepest incline outside 100
fathoms is to the south-east of the Crimea and at Amastra; the incline
to the greater depths is also steep off the Caucasus and between
Trebizond and Batum. The conditions that prevail in the Black Sea are
very different from those of the Mediterranean or any other sea. The
existence of sulphuretted hydrogen in great quantities below 100
fathoms, the extensive chemical precipitation of calcium carbonate, the
stagnant nature of its deep waters, and the absence of deep-sea life are
conditions which make it impossible to discuss it along with the
physical and biological conditions of the Mediterranean proper.

The depths of the Black Sea are lifeless, higher organic life not being
known to exist below 100 fathoms. Fossiliferous remains of _Dreissena_,
_Cardium_ and other molluscs have, however, been dredged up, which help
to show that conditions formerly existed in the Black Sea similar to
those that exist at the present day in the Caspian Sea. According to N.
Andrusov, when the union of the Black Sea with the Mediterranean through
the Bosporus took place, salt water rushed into it along the bottom of
the Bosporus and killed the fauna of the less s