1. Choose the synonyms according to the context.

1. To propel a) to make up

2. An artifact b) setting on fire of property

3. Incendiary c) to push forward

4. Sophisticated d) a product of prehistoric art

5. To compound e) a straight shot from bow

6. An arrow f) highly developed

2. Complete the following sentences.

1. The reaction principle not only contributed to the development of but also … .

2. The invention of rockets is closely … .

3. At first black powder composed of … .

4. The rocket … … by writers of fiction though … .

3. Join two sentences using connectives.

1. Rockets remained a minor artifact of civilization. They had been used from time to time for several hundred years.

2. Nobody associated the reaction principle with travelling through space. It was used in rockets.

3. Burning propellants produce high-speed particles. This reaction causes the rocket to move forwards.

4. The rocket range increases. It is placed in a specific position to other rocket-propelled arrows.

4. Put the jumbled sentences in the logical order.

1. The way a rocket operates can be compared with that of a machine gun mounted on the rear of a boat.

2. Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with the discovery of “black powder”.

3. The reaction principle has become the key to space travel.

4. It took time for the technology of rocketry to be translated into the reality of astronautics.

5. The Chinese relying on “black powder” produced incendiary projectiles of many sorts.

Unit XXVI

Key words and expressions: breed, prevent from, species, a fly, a residue, a fertilizer, decompose, deprive of.

Pre-reading tasks

Before reading the text say if you know what the Russian equivalent of the saying “Blind as a beetle” means. Why the word “beetle” is the key word?

A Remarkable Beetle

Some of the most remarkable beetles are the dung beetles, which spend almost their whole lives eating and breeding in dung.

In the early 1960s George Bornemissza, then a scientist at the Australian Government's premier research organisation, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), suggested that dung beetles should be introduced to Australia to control dung-breeding flies.

Introducing dung beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious. In the late 1960s they were introduced with a view to controlling buffalo flies by removing the dung within a day or two and so preventing flies from breeding. However, other benefits have become evident. Once the beetle larvae have finished pupation, the residue is a first-rate source of fertiliser. The tunnels abandoned by the beetles provide excellent aeration and water channels for root systems. In addition, when the new generation of beetles has left the nest the abandoned burrows are an attractive habitat for soil-enriching earthworms. The digested dung in these burrows is an excellent food supply for the earthworms, which decompose it further to provide essential soil nutrients. If it were not for the dung beetle, chemical fertiliser and dung would be washed by rain into streams and rivers before it could be absorbed into the hard earth, polluting water courses and causing blooms of blue-green algae. Without the beetles to dispose of the dung, cow pats would litter pastures making grass inedible to cattle and depriving the soil of sunlight.

Dung beetles have become an integral part of the successful management of dairy farms in Australia over the past few decades.

Post-reading tasks