from a certain colliery in the north of
England, and consists of carbonate of lime,
deposited on the sides of the pipe. The stone
is not of one uniform colour; but is striped
with alternate layers of black and white, yet
both equally carbonate of lime. This comes
about in the following way:—When the
colliers were at work the coal dust naturally
blackened the water; which, running through
the drain pipe, of course deposited a black
mark. When no work was going on the water
was necessarily clean, and a white layer was
formed. After a time the concretion
completely filled up the pipe, and it was taken up;
the black and white marks being observed,
they were compared with the clerk's day-
book, and were found accurately to correspond
with the entries therein; namely, small
streaks, alternately black and white,
represented a week; for during the day the men
were working, and during the night they
were at rest. Then came a white layer as
large as a black and white one put together.
This was Sunday—during which, there being
no work, the water was clean for forty-eight
hours. By and bye there appears a forty-
eight hour mark in the middle of one week.
The books tell the tale: this was the day
when a fair took place in the neighbourhood,
and all the colliers went by permission to it.
In another part of the stone is seen a still
larger white mark, namely, Christmas-day.
It came on a Monday, and all Sunday and
all Monday the water was clear. Thus the
workmen unconsciously recorded, literally in
black and white, their times of work and
of rest. They justly gave to this extraordinary
specimen the name of " The Sunday
Stone."

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XLI.

OLIVER CROMWELL, whom the people long
called OLD NOLL, in accepting the office of
Protector, had bound himself by a certain paper
which was handed to him, called " the Instrument,"
to summon a Parliament, consisting
of between four and five hundred
members, in the election of which neither the
Royalists nor the Catholics were to have
any share. He had also pledged himself
that this Parliament should not be dissolved
without its own consent until it had sat five
months.

When this Parliament met, Oliver made a
speech to them of three hours long, very
wisely advising them what to do for the
credit and happiness of the country. To
keep down the more violent members, he
required them to sign a recognition of what
they were forbidden by " the Instrument" to
do; which was, chiefly, to take the power from
one single person at the head of the state or
to command the army. Then he dismissed
them to go to work. With his usual vigour
and resolution he went to work himself with
some frantic preachers who were rather
overdoing their sermons in calling him a
villain and a tyrant, by shutting up their
chapels, and sending a few of them off to
prison.

There was not at that time, in England or
anywhere else, a man so able to govern the
country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he
ruled with a strong hand, and levied a very
heavy tax on the Royalists, (but not until
they had plotted against his life), he ruled
wisely, and as the times required. He caused
England to be so respected abroad, that I
wish some lords and gentlemen who have
governed it under kings and queens in later
days would have taken a leaf out of Oliver
Cromwell's book. He sent bold Admiral
Blake to the Mediterranean Sea, to make the
Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand pounds
for injuries he had done to British subjects,
and spoliation he had committed on English
merchants. He further despatched him and
his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to
have every English ship and every Englishman
delivered up to him that had been taken
by pirates in those parts. All this was
gloriously done; and it began to be thoroughly
well known, all over the world, that England
was governed by a man in earnest, who
would not allow the English name to be
insulted or slighted anywhere.

These were not all his foreign triumphs.
He sent a fleet to sea against the Dutch; and
the two powers, each with one hundred ships
upon its side, met in the English Channel, off
the North Foreland, where the fight lasted all
day long. Dean was killed in this fight;
but Monk, who commanded in the same ship
with him, threw his cloak over his body that
the sailors might not know of his death and
be disheartened. Nor were they. Their
English broadsides so exceedingly astonished
the Dutch that they sheered off at last,
though the redoubtable Van Tromp fired
upon them with his own guns for deserting
their flag. Soon afterwards, the two fleets
engaged again, off the coast of Holland.
There, the valiant Van Tromp was shot
through the heart, and the Dutch gave in,
and peace was made.

Further than this, Oliver resolved not to
bear the domineering and bigoted conduct of
Spain, which country not only claimed a
right to all the gold and silver that could be
found in South America, and treated the
ships of all other countries who visited those
regions as pirates, but put English subjects
into the horrible Spanish prisons of the
Inquisition. So, Oliver told the Spanish
ambassador that English ships must be free
to go wherever they would, and that English
merchants must not be thrown into those
same dungeons, no, not for the pleasure of all
the priests in Spain. To this, the Spanish
ambassador replied that the gold and silver
country, and the Holy Inquisition, were his
King's two eyes, neither of which he could