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Greenwich

Greenwich is on the river Thames, five miles from the middle of London, and its story is 2,000 years old. The first English people — the Saxons — were fishermen there and they gave Greenwich its name — «the green village».

You can still walk along the old Roman road in Greenwich park. But the river was the true road to the outside world for the Romans and for English kings and queens who later lived in Greenwich.

The King Henry VIII loved this place. He knew that England must be strong at sea. So two big shipyards were started at Greenwich and for 350 years the ships made there were the best in the world.

Many ships were lost at sea — their sailors did not know how to tell exactly where they were.

In the 17th century astronomer Flamstead tried to find the an­swer. He worked in an Observatory on the high ground in Green­wich park. The walls of its big light-sided (непрочной) room shook

when the weather was bad. But from it, with a telescope made by himself, Flamstead could look all round the sky. And he did look night after night for twenty years. Carrying on Flamstead's work a hundred years later, an astronomer called Harrison finally made a clock which told the time at sea and helped sailors to know where they were. You can see Harrison's clock, still working in Green­wich museum of the sea. Because of Flamstead's work every coun­try in the world now tells its time by Greenwich time.

Every year a million people come to Greenwich to see its mu­seums and palaces and its two famous ships: one old, one new. Both the big CUTTY SARK and the little GYPSY MOTH sailed through dangerous waters before they came safely back to their Greenwich home. At-the end of the 1800's the CUTTY SARK was the fastest ship of its size. Carrying more than a million kilos of tea, she travelled the 25,000 kilometeres from China to England in only hundred days.

Next to the CUTTY SARK is the GYPSY MOTH - only 16.5 metres long, but full of newest equipment. Her captain Sir F. Chichester wanted his ship to sail as far and as fast as the CUTTY SARK. When he sailed round the world by himself in CYPSY MOTH in 1966 - the first man ever to do this - he took a flag from the CUTTY SARK with him.

ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ЗАДАНИЯ

Упражнение 1.Найдите в тексте 9А:

а) ключевые слова со значением deep sea ship; переведите их;

б) словосочетания с under и близкие по значению выражения, переведи­
те их;

в) слово marine и словосочетания с ним; поясните их и приведите примеры.

Упражнение 2. А.Прочитайте текст. Постарайтесь догадаться о значении термина scuba divers.