New York

New York is not a very old city. It was founded some three hundred years ago. New York, the largest city in the U. S., is situated in the mouth of the Hudson River. The centre of New York is Manhattan Island, which at the same time is the oldest part of the city.

New York, one of the leading U. S. manufacturing cities¹, is the home of great firms and banks. The most important branches of industry are those producing vehicles, paper and paper products, glass, chemicals and all kinds of machinery. The city has very busy traffic, its streets and highways are full of cars and buses.

The mouth of the Hudson River makes an excellent harbour with different kinds of ships not only for passengers but also for much of the materials by which the city lives. Numerous bridges link Manhattan Island with the opposite shores. The sea encircles many of the city's areas, and ships go over or under New York traffic².

Many of sky-scrapers of fifty and more storeys reaching high into the sky house the banks and offices of America's money kings, the richest men in the country. Yet most of the population are working people who carry on a bitter struggle for existence and live in constant fear of misery and unemployment.

Comparatively few of New York's inhabitants live in Manhattan, although the majority spend a considerable part of the day in this centre of business life. Here Broadway begins, here is Wall Street and the Stock Exchange³ filled from ten to three with a crowd of businessmen. This is the financial district, the heart and source of America's imperialist, expansionist policy.

Among the inhabitants of New York one can meet people of almost all nationalities who came here during the immigration in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century.

Another feature of New York population is the vast number of Negroes living in Harlem, which is the most densely populated section of the city. The houses in Harlem are in worse conditions than anywhere else, yet rents are higher than in any other part of the city. In fact, Negroes are deprived of any rights that are enjoyed ⁴ by the white.

Notes

1 manufacturing city	– промислове місто;
2 ships go over or under New York traffic	– кораблі проходять над або під транспортними магістралями Нью-Йорка;
3 the Stock Exchange	– біржа;
4 to enjoy rights	– користуватися правами.

Mikhail Lomonosov

Mikhail Lomonosov was born in 1711 in the family of a fisherman in the northern coastal village of Denisovka not far from Archangelsk. When he was ten years of age his father began to take him sea fishing. The dangerous life of a fisherman taught the precocious youngster to observe the phenomena of nature more closely. During the long winter nights young Lomonosov studied his letters, grammar and arithmetic diligently.

Since he was the son of a peasant he was refused admission to the town school, so he walked to Moscow. By concealing his peasant origin he gained admission to the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy and for five years lived a hand-to mouth existence on three kopecks a day. The noblemen's sons stu­dying with him made fun of the twenty-year old giant who, despite their jeers and his own poverty, made rapid progress.

After five years came the chance of entering the Academy of Sciences, as there were not enough noble-born students to fill the quota. His ability and diligence attracted the attention of the professors and as one of three best students he was sent abroad. He spent all the time there in delving into the works of leading European scientists, studying chemistry, metallurgy, mining and mathematics. On his return to Russia in 1745 he was made a professor and the first Russian scientist to become a member of the Academy of Sciences.

For versatility Lomonosov has no equal in Russian science. Many of his ideas and discoveries only won recognition in the nineteenth century. He was the first to discover the vegetable origin of coal, for instance, and as a poet and scientist he played a great role in the formation of the Russian literary language. He died in 1765. His living memorial is the Moscow University, which he founded in 1755.