Вопрос № 605261 - Английский язык

Mr. Brown got to a hotel late in the evening. At the same time another traveller came to the hotel. The only vacant room was a double room. They spoke to each other and agreed to spend the night in the same room.

At night Mr. Brown was woken up by the second traveller. He felt very bad and asked to open the window to have some fresh air because he suffered from asthma.

Mr. Brown couldn’t find the matches, so he tried to find the window. He thought he had found it. Mr. Brown took a chair and broke the window with it. The sick man stopped moaning at once.

When they woke up next morning they were surprised to see that the only window in the room was still closed, but the large looking-glass was broken to pieces.

In the North of Scotland there is a lake which contains one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century. For somewhere in deep waters of Loch Ness a monster is hiding. The story of the Loch Ness monster begins in 1933 when it was seen for the first time.

Since then it has been seen at least once every year and has been photographed many times. The first photograph was taken by a local man in November, 1933.

On one occasion, large brown eyes were seen and horns have been reported several times. The monster, however, has not been forgotten and will probably never be forgotten.

It is known that it sometimes leaves the loch. But the monster and its activities remain a mystery.

Basket-ball is perhaps the only sport whose origin we can speak of without fear of a mistake. During the winter of 1891—1892, James Naesmith, a college instructor in Springfield, Massachusetts, invented the game of basket-ball.

He wanted his students to have physical exercise between the time when the football season closed and the baseball season opened.

He hung fruit baskets on the walls at opposite ends of the gymnasium and organized nine-men teams to play his new game. The purpose of the game was to throw the ball into a basket.

There have since been many changes in the rules (for example, the number of players is now reduced to five), but the game is basically the same today as it was more than eighty years ago.

Nobody lives on the little island of Ata, in the warm South Seas. Everybody knows that ships don’t stop at Ata, but once the Mary Jane suddenly changed her course and went towards the island. Some people on the ship had noticed a number of small figures on a hill not far from the sea coast.

When the ship came nearer, the small figures ran down the hill and into the water to meet her. There were six of them, all boys. They swam to the ship, climbed up and were soon telling their strange story.

Fifteen months before, they had gone out fishing. There was a terrible storm, and the sea had carried them 140 kilometres to this little island. The boys had arranged their life very well: each boy had his own duties. Their food was birds, birds’ eggs, fruit, fish.

The Robinson Crusoes had even made a kind of guitar: they danced and sang songs. They explained that they had enjoyed their fine life on the island, but they were glad to be saved, and were happy to return home to their own island.

The Royal Society is an English Scientific Society which was founded in 1662. Isaac Newton is the greatest name in its history. He was elected a member of the Society after he presented it with a special telescope that he had made himself.

When Newton became President of the Royal Society its reputation rose rapidly. Among the most active members at that time was Christopher Wren, who was widely known for his work in geometry.

But his main interest soon turned from geometry to architecture. Christopher Wren rebuilt St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

In the 19th century the Royal Society became more and more important in the scientific world. Among the members were world-famous names: Maxwell, Kelvin, Darwin, Rutherford.

A turtle was found in 1737 and brought to the London Zoo. When scientists studied it, they said it was more than a century old. Two hundred years later, that same turtle was still living in the Zoo.

There are also crocodiles that live as long as turtles. We all know that large parrots live long. There is one that lived 140 years. There are other birds that live to be a century old.

But elephants do not usually live so long—not more than 50 to 70 years. The life of lions is even shorter—not more than 30 years.

But the animals that live the longest lives cannot compete with members of the plant world. The prize for long life belongs to a tree in Australia that can live fifteen thousand years.