Факультет социальной работы

Text 1. A T e a c h e r o f D e a f C h i l d r e n

The story of the important step from the telegraph to the telephone is connected with the name of Alexander Graham Bell, the man who invented the telephone. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847. His father was a teacher, who was famous as the inventor of a way to teach deaf people to pronounce words that they could not hear. Alexander studied how to improve his father’s method when he was very young, not yet twenty. But he did not work very long: he fell seriously ill.

Alexander’s parents decided that only a better climate could save him, and they took him abroad to Canada. There he rested for a whole year, and at the end of that time he felt well again. Now he could return to his work as a school-teacher of deaf children. The school principal heard about Alexander’s father’s work in England, and he gave the young man work as a teacher.

Two days later, Alexander Bell stood in front of his class of deaf children. The work was not easy; he had to teach the children to pronounce words that they could not hear. Alexander loved the children and he wanted to do everything possible to help them. He began to think and dream about one great idea – sending music and words by telegraph.

“What is a speech?” he asked himself. “It is a kind of vibration, a movement of the air: if I can change this vibration into electricity, I can send it over telegraph wires.” He began to study all the literature he could find on electricity and sound. When Bell began his own experiments, everything was difficult. Alexander was a teacher and he knew very little about scientific experiments. Together with his friend and helper, Watson, he worked day and night.

At last one day he tried his new apparatus; that was the telephone – the invention of the school-teacher, Alexander Graham Bell, the idea that was the dream of his whole life.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1) What thing is connected with the name of Alexander Graham Bell?

2) What were his relations with deaf children?

3) What was his father famous for?

4) How did Alexander Bell invent telephone apparatus?

Text 2. S e e i n g F i n g e r s

Little Louis was often told never to touch “Papa’s” tools. But one day, when he was only three years old, he wanted to work with a knife in his father’s workshop. The knife was too heavy for the little boy, it slipped out of his hand and hit his eye. Within a few weeks Louis Braille was totally blind.

At the village school nobody taught the poor blind child to read. Louis’s father devised a method of teaching his son. He drove some nails into a wooden board in the form of the letters of the alphabet and taught him to read. Thus Louis learnt to read.

At the end of the 18^th century a Frenchman, Valentin Haug began to teach the blind boy. He made some wooden letters to teach the boy the alphabet. One day when the boy was dusting the master’s desk he felt some papers and discovered that the fingers could feel hard pressure of the master’s pen and he could read the paper. Thus the discovery was made that the fingers of blind people could be taught “to see".

By the time that Louis was ten, Valentin Haug’s school had turned into the National Institute for Blind Children in Paris. That is how the first school for the blind was opened in the world. The children were taught by means of raised letters made with cardboard sheets pressed upon lead type.

When Louis was fifteen he improved on a new method of writing known as “sonography”. It was a brilliant achievement. The boy showed that with only 6 dots he could make 63 combinations which covered not only the 26 letters of the alphabet but also mathematical symbols, musical notations and the normal punctuation marks. When Louis was twenty, his system of writing was officially published.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1) What was happened with Louis when he was 3 years old?

2) How did the blind child learn to read?

3) How did the first school for blind children appear?

4) What was the name of Braille’s brilliant achievement in writing?

TEXTS FOR ADDITIONAL READING

E n g l i s h T r a d i t i o n s

London has preserved its old ceremonies and traditions to a greater extent than any other city in England. Most of these traditions have been kept up without interruption since the thirteenth century. Foreigners coming to London are impressed by quite a number of ceremonies, which seem to be incompatible with the modern traffic and technical conditions of a highly developed country.

Uniforms are rather characteristic of this fact. When one sees the warders at the Tower of London with their funny hats and unusual dresses with royal monograms, one feels carried to the age of Queen Elizabeth I.

Even in the unromantic everyday life of English businessmen we can see the same formal traditions. In the City of London there may be seen a number of men in top-hats. These are the bank messengers who had to put on these hats according to tradition. The same tradition makes the Eton boys (the boys of Eton College, which was founded in 1440 by Henry VI) put on a silk hat, a very short jacket and long trousers.

All of you, of course, have seen English films and noticed official black dresses and white wigs of judges and advocates, though wigs have not been used for nearly two hundred years in other countries.

One of the most impressive and popular ceremonies is “Changing the Guard”, which takes place at Buckingham Palace every day, including Sunday, at half past eleven. The uniforms of the guards are extremely coloured – red tunics, blue trousers and bearskin caps, and they always attract London sightseers. Another formal display is the “Ceremony of Keys” which takes place every night at 9.53 p.m. when the Chief Warder of the Tower of London lights a candle lantern and carrying the keys makes his way with the Escort to the gates of the Tower and locks them.

This ceremony takes place every night without interruption. It is said that on the night of April 16, 1941, air bombing stopped the ceremony, knocking out members of the Escort. Despite this duty was completed.

Strange as it may seem to a modern European or American, nobody in London sees anything remarkable in these old traditions, which mix harmoniously with the city everyday life.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. English traditions have a long history, haven’t they?

2. What are the foreigners coming to London impressed for?

3. Why do Englishmen sometimes wear strange uniform?

4. What fact proves that Englishmen love their traditions?

T h e E d u c a t i o n a l S y s t e m i n E n g l a n d & W a l e s

The educational system is more or less the same type all over England and Wales, but Scotland has its own system.

The educational system in England and Wales is complicated. There are wide variations between the parts of the country. The English educational system is a divided one. The first division is between those who pay and those who do not; the second, between those selected for an intellectual training and those not so selected.

Education in England and Wales is compulsory from five to sixteen years old. The state provides this education free of charge. Education in England and Wales is regulated by the Education act 1944, which was adopted on August 3 of that year.

The National Education Act of 1944 divided education into three stages: Primary Education, Secondary Education, Further Education. All larger councils have an Educational Committee, often called the local education authority, which is responsible for all educational matters in the council’s area.

The local authority may establish nursery schools for every small children who are not yet five years old. There are some nursery schools, which provide informal educational and play facilities for children between two and three years old. Attendance at nursery school is not compulsory. The number of nursery schools and classes is at present small.

All children must start school at five years of age. The primary stage is divided into two – Infant School (5-7) and Junior School (7-11).

All children of 11-12 years of age pass from primary schools to secondary schools. There are different types of secondary schools. Grammar schools, secondary modern schools, technical schools are the three types of school in the so-called tripartite system of education introduced in 1944. However the traditional tripartite system is now gradually being replaced by the comprehensive system. A new system of comprehensive schools has now become more usual all over the country.

Alongside the state system of education there exists the system of private, independent or public schools. There are co-educational and single-sex schools in Great Britain.

Further education means education after school, that is, in colleges of further education, technical colleges and various other institutions. Further education includes all the part-time and full-time educational provision as well as cultural training, leisure-time activities, etc.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. The educational system in England and Wales is complicated?

2. What are the main stages of education?

3. Is attendance at nursery schools compulsory?

4. What are the changes in secondary school?

O x f o r d

There are more than thirty universities in Great Britain. The biggest University of all modern English Universities is London University. The oldest English Universities are Oxford and Cambridge.

Oxford was founded in the 12^th century as an aristocratic University and it remains aristocratic to the present day. Very few children from the lower class can afford to study there, as the cost of studies is very high. Students have to pay for everything – for using books, libraries, laboratories, for taking examinations, etc.

Oxford’s organization is very complicated. In fact the University is a collection of Colleges. There are 32 colleges in Oxford: 24 colleges for men and 5 colleges for women. Each college is a world of its own which gives its students a specialized training in arts, law, medicine, science, etc. The largest college has 500 students, the smallest college – 100 students.

The University is an administrative centre, which organizes lectures for all students of the college, holds examinations and gives degrees.

Oxford and Cambridge have a tutorial system of education and this is one of the ways in which Oxford and Cambridge differ from other English Universities. Every student has a tutor who plans his work and discusses it with the student after he has done it. Every student must see his tutor regularly and tell him everything about his studies. They discuss student’s work, papers and essays, which every student has to write and to submit to his tutor. They discuss different scientific and social problems. Though this system of education has some advantages, it brings a student into personal contact with his tutor, and the latter tries to have a great social and political influence on his students.

The academic year in England has three terms, each term lasts from eight to ten weeks. Terminal examinations take place at the end of autumn, spring and summer terms. Final examinations take place at the end of the course of studies. If a student fails in an examination, he may be allowed to take the exam again. But only two re-examinations are usually allowed.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. Is Oxford an old or a new university?

2. How many colleges are there in Oxford?

3. What are the functions of the University?

4. What is the educating system of Oxford noted for?

T h e B r i t i s h M u s e u m

The British Museum is one of the greatest and best-known museums in the world, both in the diversity of its collections and in their wide range and high quality. It was founded in 1753 by a decision of the Parliament. The British Museum occupying a splendid great building, in the neo-classical or Grecian style, was erected between 1823 and 1847.

Of the 11 major departments into which the museum is divided, the most outstanding are the Assyrian and Babylonian, the Egyptian, and the Greek and Roman Antiquities. The last makes a particular contribution to the glory of the museum with its collection of sculptures from the Parthenon.

There are also extremely important ethnological collections, including exhibits from the Pacific islands (such as ancient Polynesian idols), and America (such as Aztec sculptures). African civilization is also considerably well represented.

There is a notable and priceless collection of medieval objects of art from all the countries of Europe. But the first thing, which is associated with the British Museum, is its Library.

The Library, which is contemporary with the museum, consisted at first of the collection of books belonging to Sir Hans Sloane. To this library were added the other collection of manuscripts and books as well as the royal library, which provided the foundations of what was to become one of the largest and most important libraries in the world.

The British Museum Library came into world prominence under its most remarkable librarian – Sir Antonio Panizzi, an Italian by birth, who had to leave his country because of revolutionary activities. Under his direction the library took on its present character. During the thirty-five years of service with the British Museum he formulated the rules and started the general catalogue.

The British Museum Library is a reading-room and a reference library, but not a lending library. The famous circular Reading Room of the Museum, planned by Sir Antonio Panizzi, offers unique research facilities to scientists.

The collection of books is being systematically increased. Today there are millions of volumes in the library store-room.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. When and by what decision was the British Museum founded?

2. When was the building of the Museum built? What can you tell about its style?

3. How many departments is the Museum divided into and what are the most important ones?

4. Is the British Museum Library a lending one?

G r e e n w i c h M e a n T i m e

How did the name of a pleasant part of London situated by the River Thames become synonymous with international time keeping? The reasons go back into history. Thousands of years ago, people had no reason to divide their lives into hours and minutes. Their time was the movement of the sun, which created day and night, and the rhythm of the seasons. Gradually, a 24-hour cycle was introduced, based on the point when the sun was in the middle of the sky which became midday. But, because the earth rotates, midday in one town might be twenty minutes after midday in another town a hundred miles away. So each area of the world kept its own time. The obvious solution – a national standard time, so that every town should set their watches and clocks by it. The electric telegraph was the key to success, for a simultaneous signal could be sent along it to any part of the country. So, in 1852, the first signal went out from the astronomers of Britain’s Royal Observatory, which was then situated in Greenwich. From then on, Britain followed Greenwich Mean Time.

The word “Mean” refers to something, which is in the middle – an average. When the noonday sun at its highest point was directly over a particular place (the Meridian Line in Greenwich), the astronomers defined this as noon, Greenwich Time. This Greenwich Time was used for the whole country, so it became the “Mean” by which time was calculated in Britain.

Britain managed quite well with Greenwich Mean Time, but the development of many different national times around the world meant that a country could still be out of step with its neighbours. So in 1912 an international conference decided that Greenwich Mean Time would be used throughout the world. In 1948 the Royal Observatory was moved away from the London air to a village in the South of England called Herstmonceux. Instead of changing the G in GMT to an H, the astronomers simply added 81 seconds to their calculations.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. Why a standard time was necessary?

2. When and where was it decided that GMT would be used throughout the world?

3. The Royal Observatory is on the same place as it was many years ago, isn’t it?

4. What do the astronomers have to do now as a result of the change of place of the Royal Observatory?

G e o g r a p h i c a l P o s i t i o n o f t h e U S A

The USA is a highly developed capitalist country. It covers an area of almost 9,400,000 km². The population of the USA is more than 236 million people. The country consists of 50 states joined in a federal republic and is placed in the middle of the North American continent. It is washed by the Atlantic Ocean in the east and by the Pacific Ocean in the west. Hawaii, which became the 50^th state in 1959, is situated approximately midway. Alaska is separated from Siberia by only about 50 miles of the Bering Strait.

The USA is divided into 3 areas: Eastern area – a highland, Central area – a plain, and the Western area which is mountainous and includes the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada and the Andes.

The north-western part of the USA includes 5 lakes: the Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario. The whole central plain constitutes the basin of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi with Missouri is one of the longest rivers in the world. The longest rivers in the west are the Columbia and the Colorado.

It is a very large country, so it has several different climatic regions. The main land mass of the USA is in the temperate zone. The coldest regions are in the north and north-west. The south has a subtropical climate.

The USA is largely an urban nation. Approximately two thirds (2/3) of the inhabitants live in urban areas. The capital of the country is Washington, which is situated on the Potomac River not far from the Atlantic coast. It was named after George Washington, the first president of the U.S. Washington is not a very large city. Such cities as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Detroit and some others are larger.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. Where is the country placed?

2. What oceans is it washed by?

3. What areas is the USA divided into?

4. What are the famous lakes of the country?

5. What are the largest rivers of the USA?

6. What have you learned about climatic regions in the USA?

7. Where is the capital of the US situated?

8. What are the largest cities of this country?

T h e F i r s t P e o p l e i n A m e r i c a

1

America was a place where during most of its history nature developed free from the influence of man. The first people appeared in the New World about 25000 years ago. The scientists have discovered about 750 prehistoric stone instruments at several places of northern Alaska and along the Arctic coast of Canada. Groups of instruments found near the Lake Baikal, Siberia, are about 20000 years old. The climate in the Far North at that time was warm and there was dry land between Asia and Alaska. The Bering land bridge was wide open from about 23 000 to 13 000 years ago. It seems possible that the first people and groups of animals travelled northward across the hills of the Siberian Arctic and then eastward across the land bridge and along the northern coast of Alaska. The migration of people from Asia to America went on for thousands of years. Later the oceans covered this natural bridge with water. Today this place is called the Bering Strait. By the time of the European discovery of North America, there were about 276 Indian tribes. The Indian population of North America in 1500 was 4,200,000.

The white colonizers came and began to destroy the Indians and drive them away from their lands. In 1970 the Indian population of the USA and Canada was only about 800,000.

2

Scientists have found out that early Americans were hunters and fishermen. In the West there were many buffaloes. Out of their skins the Indians made clothes and covered their houses – the wigwams – with them. The Indians made canoes which were used for hunting and fishing. Some canoes were very large; they could carry about one hundred people. They used animal skins for clothing and most of animals for food, ate fruit, roots, and berries. They knew how to make a fire too. They made stone instruments. Indians learned to make baskets and things from gold, silver, and other metals. They depended for their needs on the animals and plants. The Indians of North America did not keep any domestic animals except the dogs.

Some of the plants the early Indians grew for food were beans and tomatoes. Potatoes and tobacco were other plants they learned to grow. From the fruit of the cacao-tree they made a drink. Later, when Europeans came to America, they learned about these plants from the Indians. Many different cultures developed in North America long before men from Europe came to America. There were many different tribes of American Indians (the Apaches, the Hopi, the Navaho and others) and each spoke its own language. There are about two hundred Indian languages in North America, each with its own grammar and vocabulary.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. Where did the American Indians come from?

2. What was the cultural situation in North America before men from Europe came? 3. What plants did Europeans learn about from Indians?

T h e C i v i l W a r B e t w e e n t h e S t a t e s ( 1 8 6 1 – 1 8 6 5 )

1

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries the United States was divided into the North where labour was free, and the South where slaves worked.

From early times there had been Negro slaves in the South of the United States. Negro men, women and children were taken from Africa by force or by some trick and brought to America. Here in the South they worked as slaves on tobacco and cotton plantations.

The life of the slaves was very hard. They worked from morning till night and were beaten and starved. Sometimes their owners sold them, separating husbands and wives, mothers and children.

There were many revolts of the slaves and sometimes white men and women helped them in their struggle but the revolts came to nothing.

The Negro slaves were freed by President Lincoln in 1863.

2

The war broke out soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. It was the war between the industrial North and the agricultural South, where slave labour was much used.

Lincoln, a progressive man, was against slavery. He wanted very much to free the Negro slaves. His ideas about freedom for the black slaves were good for the rich people of the industrial North. The planters of the South who exploited those slaves were against them. So the slave owners in the South were displeased that Lincoln was elected and very soon after that the Southern States left the Union and formed their own Confederation. Then the war broke out between the North and the South.

The population of the North was 22 million, and that of the South was 9 million, but the army of the South was well organized and ready for war. This could not be said of the army of the North. So in the first months of the war the South won several victories.

Only when General Grant became commander-in-chief of the Northern Army, the North began to win the war and in April 1865 it ended.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. When did the Civil War begin?

2. Was Lincoln a progressive man? What did he want to do?

3. What did the Southern States do before the war broke out?

4. Why did the army of the South win the victories at the beginning of the war?

5. When did the army of North begin to win the war?

N a t i o n a l E c o n o m y

1

The USA is one of the most highly developed capitalist states. It leads the capitalist world in industrial and agricultural production, leaving the other countries far behind.

The United States owes its high level of economic development mainly to its great mineral riches. It has been able to use them for a long time without wars. No one of the world wars of the 20^th century took place on its territory. The US monopolies only became richer from the world wars.

The United States is rich in a variety of mineral resources. It is a world leader in the production of many important mineral resources, such as aluminium, cement, lead, phosphates, salt, uranium, and zinc.

Leading mineral-producing states are Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, important for petroleum and natural gas, and Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, important for coal, the Lake Superior area (Minnesota and Michigan) is important for iron-ore.

The country is rich in coal, iron, oil and natural gas and holds first place in the world for their production. It also has gold, silver, such non-ferrous as aliminium, magnesium, titanium. The state of Illinois is rich in coal. Coal is also found in many other parts of the country: in the Cordillera Mountains, in the state of Kansas, near Birmingham and Pittsburgh. The district near the Great Lakes is rich in iron too.

The oil fields are situated in California, Texas, Alaska and other regions.

2

Since the end of World War II the United States has exported raw materials, agricultural and industrial products.

Computers, and automatic systems characterize the advances in technology. The heavy industries are for the most part in the Middle West, in the region of the Great Lakes, around Detroit and Chicago, in the north-eastern states and near Birmingham. The automobile industry and all kinds of machine-building are highly developed especially in and near Detroit, in California and in the areas of heavy industry. Shipbuilding is developed along the Atlantic coast and also in San Francisco and Seattle on the Pacific coast. The textile industry is concentrated in the north-east, in Boston and other cities; but it is especially well developed in the South, where much cotton is grown, in the Mississippi valley.

The USA has a highly developed railway system. It also has the best system of roads in the world. The Great Lakes and the rivers, especially the Saint Lawrence River and the Mississippi, are used for transport. In recent years the growth of air traffic has been observed.

American agriculture produces more food products than any other country. Much of them are exported. The USA produces 52 per cent or more of the world’s corn, soybeans, edible vegetable oils, wheat, tobacco, rice, cotton, and barley. Animal husbandry is also developed in the country.

The United States harvests a lot of vegetables such as tomatoes, potatoes and onions. Arizona, Florida, California and Texas are the major citrus-producing states. They grow oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, lemons. Strawberries and apples are also produced.

The highlands in the west of the country are famous for their cattle farming. Poultry farming and vegetable-growing are concentrated in the countryside near all the big cities.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. What does the USA owe its high level of economic development to?

2. What are the main mineral resources of the USA?

3. What have you learned about the agriculture of the country?

4. What is the US transportation system?

A b r a h a m L i n c o l n ( 1 8 0 9 – 1 8 6 5 )

On the 12^th of February 1809, a little boy was born in the backwoods of America, in the State of Kentucky. His name was Abraham Lincoln and he lived with his parents and his sister in a log hut.

Life was not very easy for the Lincoln family. The family was very poor. They moved several times and lived as pioneers in wild new country in Indiana and Illinois. In 1818 Lincoln’s mother died. His father was a poor farmer and the boy had to work much on their small farm. Abraham had little chance to go to school. With the help of his stepmother, he taught himself how to read and write. In all his life Abraham never went to school for more than a year. But he read a lot. “The things I want to know are in books”, he said.

Young Lincoln performed a variety of odd jobs. In the war against the Indians he served as a captain of the militia.

One day Abraham Lincoln bought a book about laws of England. He studied it every day, and his interest in law grew.

Once he passed a large open market place, and there for the first time he saw Negro men, women and children who were sold as slaves to white masters. He also saw how cruelly these poor slaves were treated. He never forgot it and he decided to help the slaves.

Later he became a lawyer and began taking an interest in politics. His life was interesting and useful. He knew how he could help people, he tried to use the law to defend them.

Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature and in 1846 to the US Congress. He struggled against slavery. He said that the black slaves of America must be free. He thought of a free country for all the people. And people believed in him. Lincoln became very popular. In 1860 he was elected President of the United States of America.

His ideas about freedom for the black slaves were supported by the industrial North. The slaves owners of the South who exploited those slaves were against them. So a war between the North and the South began. It was won by the North.

Lincoln made the famous Gettysburg Address (“government of the people, by the people, for the people”) and in 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, giving political freedom to three million blacks of the South. The Proclamation restored the anti-slavery clause, which had been cut from the Declaration of Independence.

In 1864 Abraham Lincoln was elected President again. But his enemies, who wanted to exploit the black slaves as before, could not let Lincoln continue his good work. A year later he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a popular young actor, during a theater performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

Abraham Lincoln is well-known and loved by Americans for his honesty, intelligence, and humanity. Abraham Lincoln’s traditions live in the struggle of all progressive people in the USA.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. How did he get his education?

2. Why did Americans love Lincoln?

3. Why is he popular and loved today?

W a s h i n g t o n , t h e N a t i o n ‘ s C a p i t a l

Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States of America, is situated on the Potomac River. Washington does not belong to a state. It is a city and district – the District of Columbia (D.C.). The district is a piece of land ten miles square. The city is named in honour of the nation’s first President George Washington. The district is named in honour of Columbus, the discoverer of America. Don’t confuse it with the State of Washington, which is located in the northwest of the United States.

The capital owes very much to the first President of the United States, George Washington. It was Washington who chose the place for the District and laid in 1790 the corner stone of the Capitol, where Congress sits. It was decided that the new seat of government should be situated on the left bank of the Potomac River, between the states of Maryland and Virginia – a compromise area, between the states of the North and the South.

Washington, D.C., is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the US. The metropolitan area now has a population of nearly three million. In the inner area of D.C., the majority of population is black or Afro-Americans as they are now called, and they are used in the services.

Along the banks of the Potomac River there are many green parks and gardens. In 1912 the famous cherry trees were planted in Washington. The 3000 flowering cherry trees were a gift from Japan and are still a major attraction for visitors and residents in the early days of spring.

The most beautiful park in metropolitan Washington, apart from Rock Greek, is Great Falls Park. This park is split in two by the waterfalls from the Virginia side.

Washington has many libraries, museums, art galleries and beautiful buildings. The Library of Congress is located here. It is the largest national library in the world. It takes 340 miles of shelves to hold all of the books.

The National Gallery of Art houses one of the greatest art collections of the world. The pink Tennessee marble building was opened to the public in 1941. It measures 785 feet in length and has more than half a million feet of floor space. The Rotunda with its interior walls of dark green marble imported from Italy and two garden courts are important features of the building.

Paintings, sculptures, tapestries and many other objects by the great masters from 14^th to 19^th centuries are exhibited in the Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, British and American galleries.

There is the famous Pentagon in Washington. The Pentagon is a building where the headquarters of the Department of Defence, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force are located. It is the military centre of the United States.

The Pentagon was built between 1941-1943. It is a huge five-sided building and five storeys high. It is the largest office building in the world. The Pentagon has more than 17 miles of corridors and a lot of people work here. Inside the Pentagon yard there is a subway station and two helicopter pads.

The NASA Museum is located in Washington, D.C. This museum is devoted to the US achievements in the exploration of Space.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. Where is Washington, D.C., situated?

2. What does “D.C.” stand for?

3. Why was the city named Washington?

4. What was the gift from Japan that is still a major attraction for visitors?

5. What parks are located in the capital?

6. Is the Library of Congress the largest library of the world?

7. What have you learned about the National Gallery of Art?

N e w Y o r k

New York is the largest city and port in the United States. It is the industrial and cultural centre of the country. It is the financial and business centre of the capitalist world. It is also the centre of the political life, the centre of the mass media and the world’s biggest bank centre. New York is the economic capital of the USA with a population of nearly eight million. American travel agencies call New York “the wonder city of the world”.

The population of New York, together with the population of its suburbs, comes to 16 million people. It is a multi-national city, the people that live in it speak seventy-five different languages. New York is a city of social contrasts. Not very far from some of the city’s famous skyscrapers there are slums – streets of broken-down houses where the poor of the city live. If you go along the Fifth Avenue, you come to Harlem, populated by the black people of New York. It is the largest Negro ghetto.

There are five parts (“boroughs”, as they are called there) in New York: Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Richmond. Only one of them, the Bronx, is not on an island.

The centre of New York is located on the granite island of Manhattan, which lies between the Hudson River and the East River. The island is 13 miles long and 2 miles wide (the smallest island in New York). The population of Manhattan is about two million people. Here is the heart of America’s business and culture, the city of skyscrapers, of Broadway, of Wall Street, which is the centre of American money business.

Wall Street is the site of the New York Stock Exchange and the centre of the world financial life. The street got its name in the old days when one of the Dutch governors of New Amsterdam built a wall across Manhattan to protect the colonists from the Indians. The wall was later broken but the name remained.

Broadway is the centre of the theatres and night life. It is a city that never goes to sleep. Buses and the subway run all night. There are many drugstores and restaurants, which never close. There are cinemas with films that start at midnight. Broadway is known as “The Great White Way” because of the electric signs which turn night into day.

New York has a famous opera house, the Metropolitan, where international stars sing from September until April. The Carnegie Hall is the city’s most popular concert hall.

The pride of the New Yorkers is the Empire State Building situated in the centre of the city (at the corner of the 5^th Avenue and the 34^th Street). It is of 102 storeys high (448 metres) and is built of Indian limestone, aluminium, steel, glass and marble brought from France, Italy, Belgium and Germany. The building weighs 365 000 tons. There are two observation platforms: one – on the 86^th and the other on the 102^nd floor. The building is open for observation seven days and nights a week. The observatory elevators speed the visitors to the 80^th floor in less than a minute. The highest, most powerful and far-reaching television antenna in the USA (1454 feet) is erected on that tower. There are 73 elevators in the building, 1860 steps on stairs (from street level to the 102^nd floor), 6500 windows and 3500 miles of telephone and telegraph wire. On the main floor a city of shops is located, it is visited by 35000 people daily. Over two million and a half people visit the Empire State Building each year.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. What kind of city is New York?

2. What is typical for New York?

3. Where is the city located?

4. What are the boroughs of New York?

5. What are the main streets of the city?

6. What is the pride of the New Yorkers?

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