И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

2. Переведите текст устно, обращая внимание на глагол would.
A Bridge Across the English Channel
(1) For many years the idea of a direct link between England and France attracted the attention of scientists and engineers. Most of them thought that an underwater tunnel would be the best solution of the problem. However, William Frichman, an English engineer, suggested quite a different concept. Here is his project.

(2) It is a bridge that would provide the best communi­cation across the English Channel. The bridge is to be carried by supports 800 m high, that is, two and a half times as high as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It is to be about 40 km long, with a deck carrying two or three road­ways for motor traffic in both directions and a double-track railway. The strength of the reinforced concrete bridge structure would be enough to withstand winds of great force. The bridge carrying capacity would be 10,000 motor cars per hour. The cost of the bridge would be about 4.5 billion dollars.

3. Прочтите развернутый план текста А, не поль­зуясь словарем; определите значения выделенных слов и словосочетаний, исходя из контекста; перескажите содер­жание каждого пункта плана по-русски.

(1) Thousands of miles of world railroads are built in tunnels, in the black depth of the earth. Tunnels are engi­neering structures which are built when a railroad is to pass through mountains or under water obstacles. Tunnelling is an extremely costly and difficult job.

(2) The construction of the Alpine tunnels may serve an example of numerous difficulties encountered by tunnel-lers in building the early tunnels. The story of their con­struction is the story of constant struggle against the powerful forces of nature. At first, all work was performed manually for only hand tools were used at that time. However, with the introduction of dynamite and compressed-air drills (бурильный молоток) the building of the Alpine tunnels advanced at a higher rate.

(3) A great contribution to tunnel construction was made with the invention" of a shield (щит), a special machine for boring tunnels. Since that time tunnels have been bored in the modern manner.

(4) An interesting project of building an underwater tunnel between Japan's two major islands Honshu and Hokkaido has recently attracted the attention of tunnel engineers. According to the scheme the tunnel is to be nearly 54 km long. This figure alone shows how great is the project.

(5) Another scheme of great interest is the Channel Tunnel to link England with France across the English Channel. Being built deep under water, it would not inter­fere with navigation. In addition; weather conditions would not affect the traffic through the tunnel.

(6) Needless to say that the cost of this tunnel would be enormous. For a long time this fact was the main obstacle in the way to the realization of the project.

4. Прочтите текст со словарем и дайте ответы на следующие вопросы.

1. When do engineers have to build tunnels and why should tunnel construction be avoided whenever possible?

2. Why was the building of the Mont Cenis tunnel an extreme­ly hard job and what measures accelerated its construction?

3. What difficulties did the tunnellers encounter in boring the next two Alpine tunnels? 4. Why was the construction of the tunnel under the Thames of great importance to further advance of tunnelling? 5. What figures characterise the tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido in Japan? 6. What is the history of the Channel Tunnel and why was its first project not realized? 7. What are the points in favour of building the Channel Tunnel? 8. What are the basic fea­tures of the newly-proposed Channel Tunnel project?