The Importance of Iron and Advent of Steel

Chapter 1

Unit 1

Metal-Making And Civilization

Text 1

Metals in Perspective

Modern civilization is based on metals and millions of tons are extracted from the surface of the Earth every year. The place of metals in the modern world is surpreme in importance. About three-quarters of all known chemical elements are metals.

Since the Stone Age, man has found many materials he could work with. However, the materials that helped him most to develop were the metals. In many regions of the Ancient World man used lumps of native metals he could pick from the surface of the ground: gold nuggets, lumps of native copper and silver.

Archaeologists have found evidence of early metal-work dating as far back as 10,000 BC. Such finds were made in the Middle East, where deposits of copper were most plentiful. This does not mean that this metal was easy to find, but that there were more deposits in the Middle East than other parts of the world.

Copper seems to be the first metal which began to oust stone. The need for copper was great indeed. The advantages that copper had over stone as a material for weapons, tools, were obvious. The metal occured naturally in the pure (free) state and had many good things about it: it could readily be worked to any shape, flattened, pointed and holed. At first, man made it into small things such as arrowheads. Before long, however, man noticed that when hammered copper becomes harder and stronger, but if it is held over a fire - soft, malleable, easy to work.

Gold is the most malleable of all the metals. It is much softer than copper and not very strong. But gold has been valued for thousands of years for its beautiful luster and scarcity.

In about 4300 BC in the region of the Caspian Sea man discovered the process of smelting - how to extract the metals from their ores.

Two new metals came into use at this time - about 4,000 BC. The first was silver, prized in those days as it is today, for its beauty, and used for ornaments. It was sometimes found ‘free’, lying around, as was gold, but was mostly smelted from ores. The second metal was lead, a dull heavy metal, soft and easily shaped into cups and beakers. Lead is never found ‘free’; it has always been smelted from ore.

During the next 1,000 years the knowledge of the four metals far known - gold, copper, silver and lead - spread to other lands. Troy (home of Helen), near the Dardanelles, was the chief centre of trade and from there goods were carried by boat into Europe. The River Danube provided a highway deep into the continent, and the traders’ boats also took metal goods to all countries around the Mediterranean. Eventually they reached Britain, and the art of smelting and metal working became known in this country. Quite early in the history of metal the process of casting was used to shape metal.

So, during the many centuries of his history man has learnt how to mine, smelt and work many metals. But iron - the chief metal of present times - has given the name of Iron Age to the most significant and productive period in the development of human society.

Task 1

Phonetic Exercise

Practise after the speaker and learn to pronounce the words given below:

surface /’s':fis/; surpreme /s' ‘pri:m/; nugget /’n/\git/; malleable /’mж li' bl/; scarcity /’ske'siti/; ornament /’o:n'm'nt/; ore /o:/; require /ri’kwai'/; deposit /di’pozit/; obvious /’obvi's/; chemical /’kemik'l/; oust /aust/; surroundings /s'‘raundinz/; monetary /’m/\ nit'ri/; available /'‘veil'bl/; treatment /’tri:tment/; lead /led/.

Task 2

Lexical Exercises

Exercise 1. Find the English equivalents for the words and word- combinations

given below. Use them in the sentences of your own.

современная цивилизация	добывать металл
иметь огромное значение	химический элемент
куски природного металла	золотой самородок
месторождение меди	преимущество меди над камнем
встречаться в чистом виде	твердый
подвергаться термической обработке	мягкий
ковкий	блеск
плавка (плавление)	извлечение чистого металла из руды
обрабатывать металл	свинец

Exercise 2. Match the English words and word-combinations given

below with their Russian equivalents.

1. the place of metals in the modern	1. придавать любую форму world
2. to pick from the surface of the ground	2. твердый материал
3. deposits of copper	3. как и серебро
4. the need for iron	4. наиболее широко используемый металл
5. to work to any shape	5. обрабатывать металлы
6. alongside with silver	6. место металлов в современном мире
7. a hard material	7. основные металлургические ремесла
8. basic metallurgical arts	8. потребность в железе
9. the most widely used metal	9. поднять с поверхности земли
10. to work metals	10. месторождения меди

Exercise 3. Answer the following questions.

1. What is modern civilization based on?

2. What were the materials that helped man most to develop? Why?

3. Was iron the first metal to oust stone?

4. When did man start using metals?

5. Where was evidence of early metal-work found?

6. Why is gold widely used for ornaments?

7. What was the 4th metal discovered and what are its properties?

Exercise 4. Complete the following statements by choosing the answer which

you think fits best. Are the other answers unsuitable? Why?

1. Modern civilization is based on metals because:

a) three quarters of all known chemical elements are metals.

b) they can be used to produce a wide variety of things.

c) they are very cheap.

2. Gold has been used for ornaments for thousands of years because:

a) it has beautiful luster.

b) it is not very strong.

c) it is scarce.

3. Heat treatment is used because:

a) it makes iron harder.

b) it protects iron against corrosion.

c) it improves the properties of iron.

4. Copper began to oust stone because:

a) it could be readily worked to any shape.

b) there was more copper than stone on the surface of the Earth.

c) it had a beautiful luster.

Exercise 5. Give a written Russian translation of the following definitions.

Copper - a ductile, malleable, reddish-brown metallic element that is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. It is widely used either pure or in alloys such as brass or bronze.

Gold - a soft yellow, corrosion-resistant element, the most malleable ductile metal, occuring in veins and alluvial deposits and recovered by mining, or by panning sluicing. It is a good thermal and electrical conductor, generally alloyed to increase its strength, and used as an international monetary standard, in jewelry, for decoration and as a plated coating on a wide variety of electrical and mechanical components.

Silver - a lustrous white, ductile malleable metallic element, occuring both uncombined and in ores such as argentite, having the lightest thermal and electrical conductivity of the metals. It is highly valued for jewelry, tableware and other ornamental use, and is widely used in coinage, photography, dental and soldering alloys, electrical contacts and printed circuits.

Lead - soft, malleable, ductile, bluish-white, dense metallic element, extracted chiefly from galena.

Task 3

Focus on Grammar

Articles

The indefinite articles (a, an) are used with countable nouns when they are singular (a metal, an element).

The definite article (the) may be used with plural nouns and with either countable or uncountable single nouns:

- to specify something that has been already mentioned:

The elements, I have mentioned, are very active.

- To refer to something that is unique:

a planet - the earth

- To express superlatives:

the heaviest element

- With ordinal numbers:

the twenty-first century; the last paper

- With a noun that is followed by an of phrase:

the atomic number of oxygen

article is not used	only ‘the’ is used
1) before abstract nouns: Life is wonderful!	1) before proper names of groups of islands, chains of mountains, plural names of deserts, coutries: the Alps; the Atlantic, the Thames the USA. the Netherlands.
2) before names of people and places (except those in the right column). But the Smiths (= the Smith family).	2) with certain other names: the Sudan, the Yemen, the Hague
3) after a noun in the possessive case, or a possessive pronoun: this is my book	3) before names consisting ofadjective+noun: the Gold Coast, the High Street
4) before ‘home’	4) before names consisting ofnoun+of+noun the Cape of Good Hope, the Union of South Africa

Exercise 1. Explain the use of the articles or their absence.

Gold is a rather rare element. 2. Sheila is a student. Her subject is mathematics. 3. The Hymalayas form a wall along the north of India. 4.They decided to have dinner with the Browns. 5. In fact Russian managers enjoy more freedom to make decisions. 6. Professor Rogers is a physisist. His special field is classical physics. 7. Every fifteen years Mars comes within about 56 million kilometres of Earth (the next approach will occur in the summer of 2003). 8. Physical metallurgy deals with the nature, structure and physical properties of metals and alloys. 9. The chemical elements are devided into metals and non-metals. 10. Man knows how to mine, smelt and work metals. 11. The Mediterranian was one of the main sea-routs to transport metals in ancient times. 12. Very little hydrogen is found free in nature.

Exercise 2. Fill in the spaces with articles whenever necessary.

1. ... iron occurs only sparingly in ... free state. 2. In ... distant times ... Caucasus was probably connected with ... Balcans. 3. ... United States of America is located on ... American continent. 4. ... Manhattan lies at .... mouth of ... Hudson River. 5. They went to ... Swiss Alps for ... Christmas holidays. 6. I like ... tea, but she prefers ... mineral water. 7. ... ancient Greece and Rome were known for their excellent metal workers. 8. She has just returned from ... Hague. 9. I don’t know where ... Cape of ... Good Hope is. ... Geography is not my best subject. 10. ... Doctor Albert Arnott, who is a nuclear physicist, does not have much administrative work to do though he is ... Head of Department of ... Atomic Physics at Cambridge. He has ... very good assistant. 11. When I was in ... London I liked to walk in ... Trafalgar Square. 12. ... body at ... rest tends to remain at ... reat, and ... body in ... motion tends to remain in ... motion. 13. ... Browns are my neighbours. 14. ... Guardian is among ... most popular British newspapers. 15. He stood by ... window of ... sitting-room which overlooked ... Hyde Park. 16. ... capital of ... United States, Washington, D.C., is not located in any state, but lies between ... states of Maryland and ... Virginia. 17. ... future of ... British education depends on ... success of ... radical reforms of ... present Government. 18. ... Britain was ... rural country until ... end of ... 18th century. 19. … effect of radiation on … living things depends on … amount of radiation absorbed and … rate of absorption.

Text 2

Pre - reading tasks.

1. Find the answers to the following questions:

a) What was Hephaestus?

b) Was he a lovely, healthy child?

c) Why was he returned to Olympus?

d) Did he help much to the gods of Olympus?

e) Did his children resemble him?

2. Give the titles to the paragraphs of the text.

3. What other Greek or Roman gods do you know? What did they patronize?

Pronouncing Dictionary

Hephaestus /hi’fi:st's/ Zeus /zju:s/ Hera /’hiar / Thetis /’qetis/ Eurinome /ju'‘rain'm/ Artemis /’a:timis/ Apollo /ж‘polou/

Palaemon /’pжl'm'n/ Ardalus /’a:d'l's/

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was born into the family of Zeus and Hera, the supreme rulers of the Greek gods, who lived on Olympus. When Hera saw her ugly deformed child (he was lame), she threw him out. The infant fell into the ocean, where Thetis and Eurinome, the Oceanid found him and brought him up for nine years in their cave, unknown to the gods or Hera. It was here that he learnt his arts of a metalworker. He made a golden throne for his mother and sent it to her. There was a trap in the throne, and when Hera sat on it, she could not leave it, and none of the gods was able to help her. It was his revenge. So the gods sent for Hephaestus. They invited him to come to Olympus.

On Olympus he became a master craftsman, the smith and metal-founder for the gods. Hephaestus was very useful to the Olympians. He built splendid halls and palaces and enabled the gods to live in great luxury. He even made armour for mortal men when a goddess asked him about it.

Hephaestus had a workshop on Olympus where, in the great battle of the gods and giants, he used molten iron to quell the giant Mimas. Hephaestus also forged the chain that bound Prometheus to the top of Mount Caucasus; and he made Zeus’ thunderbolts and the arrows of Artemis and Apollo.

His children (mostly lame like himself) included the Argonaut Palaemon and Ardalus, inventor of the flute.

Task 2

Comprehension Check

Exercise 1.Here are the answers to some questions about the text.

Work out the questions.

1) Zeus and Hera were the supreme rulers of the Greek Gods. 2) Hera threw Hephaestus out because he was an ugly deformed child. 3) Hephaestus was returned to Olympus to free his mother Hera. 4) On Olympus he became a master craftsman. 5) Yes, he also became the smith and metal founder for the gods. 6) His son Ardalus was inventor of the flute. 7) No, Hephaestus didn’t use boiled water, he used molten iron to quell the giant Mimas.

Exercise 2. Read the text carefully and agree or disagree with the

statements given below.

1. Hephaestus was born by Athena. 2. Hephaestus was a charming, healthy child, and his mother loved him very much. 3. Hephaestus’ revenge was very crafty. 4. He made armour both for gods and for mortal men. 5. Hephaestus didn’t work on Olympus, he preferred working among mortal people. 6. He was the chief god of commerce. 7. He was very skilled and enabled gods to live in luxury.

Exercise 3. Look at the text and find words or phrases which mean the same as:

chief, main	newborn child	Produce
be able	Wonderful	Fight
avenge	give a possibility

Exercise 4. Put the jumbled sentences in the right order to get

an organized text.

1. William Shakespear, the greatest and most famous of English writers, was born in 1564.

2. There is a story that Shakespeare’s first job was to hold rich men’s horses at the theatre door.

3. The last half of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries are known as the golden age of English literature.

4. His father, John Shakespeare, was a merchant and he had several houses in Stratford.

5. Later Shakespeare became an actor.

6. His mother, Mary Arden, was a farmer’s daughter.

7. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets.

8. He was a great humanist and believed in the high and noble features of man’s mind.

Oral Practice

Meeting people. Family. Occupation. Hobbies.

Patterns

Questions	Replies
1. What is your name?	1. My name is ...
2. Where are you from?	2. I am from Russia.
3. Are you married? No, I’m single/divorced	3. Yes, I am.
4. Have you got any children?	4. Yes, I’ve got a boy who is nine years old and an eighteen-year old girl.
5. What do you do?	5. I’m an engineer.
6. Where do you work?	6. I work in an office.
7. What are you interested in?	7. I’m interested in music/sports/dancing
8. What do you like?	8. I like skating/playing football/reading books.
9. What is you hobby?	9. I like collecting stamps.
10. Do you like going to disco clubs at your leisure?	10. Not much.

Family: grandmother, grandfather, grandparents, mother, father, parents, son, daughter, children, brother, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, in-laws.

Occupations: student, engineer, teacher, secretary, doctor, car mechanic, plumber, carpenter, photographer, librarian, laboratory assistant, hairdresser, nurse, bank clerk.

Exercise 1. Fill in the questioneer.

Personal details

Surname . . . . . . First name . . . . .

Nationality . . . . Date of birth . . .

Occupation . . . . Place of birth . . .

Date of arrival in Britain . . . . .

Length of stay . . . . . .

Exercise 2. Try to quess the job by asking questions like these:

Do you . . . wear a uniform / a suit/ overalls

work inside/outside/ in an office/ in a bank/at a clinic

make things

draw schemes

attend the lectures

repair cars

give lectures

look after patients

count the money

Are you a . . .?

Exercise 3. Complete the following sentences.

1. My mother’s sister is my . . . 2. My father’s brother is my . . .

3.My wife’s father is my . . . 4. My husband’s mother is my . . .

5. My uncle’s daughter is my . . . 6. My wife’s brother is my . . .

7. My father’s mother is my . . . 8. My husband’s relatives are my . . .

Exercise 4. Learn the dialogue by heart and make a dialogue of your own,

using the patterns.

Ben: Hello! My name is Ben. What is your name?

Susan: My name is Susan.

Ben: Nice to meet you, Susan. Where are you from?

Susan: I am from York. And where are you from?

Ben: I’m from Melburn. I’m Australian.

Susan: Glad to meet you. What do you do?

Ben: I’m an engineer. And what are you?

Susan: I’m a teacher. Have you got a family?

Ben: Yes, I’m married, with two children.

Exercise 5. What questions would you ask if the replies are:

1. I’m from France.

2. She is a student.

3. He drives lorries.

4. Hans is from Germany.

5. I’m Swedish.

6. She is an assistant in a shop.

7. He’s a teacher.

8. They are from Russia.

Exercise 6.Pretend, you’ve been in England for three days, but you haven’t made any friends yet. Then, one morning, you are having coffee during the morning break and a student comes and sits next to you…. Think of some questions the student might ask.How would you reply? What questions could you ask?

Unit 2

Text 1

The Importance of Iron and Advent of Steel

Life seems impossible now without iron, the cheapest and most important metal we use. Iron is extracted from a rocky material called iron ore. Like many elements, iron is too reactive to exist on its own in the ground. Instead, it combines with other elements, especially oxygen, in ores. The chemical process for extracting a metal from its ore is called smelting.

The first people who discovered how to extract iron from iron ore were the Hittites, a powerful group of people living in Asia Minor and Syria - south of the Black Sea. They kept the process a closely guarded secret. The Egyptians, for example, had to pay the Hittites in gold four times the weight of iron and once deceived them with lumps of bronze covered with a thin layer of gold.

The smelting of iron was the most important metallurgical development. Iron-ore is plentiful all over the world, therefore it may seem surprising that such a long time elapsed before iron was produced. The reason was that the furnaces used to smelt copper were not hot

Sometimes the early iron-workers, or smiths, accidentally produced a steel article instead of an iron one. Steel is iron with a small percentage of carbon in it. The carbon came from the fuel in the furnace in which the iron was heated. The smiths later learned from experience how to introduce this carbon when they wanted to produce steel.

Steel is stronger than iron, and can be made stronger still by quenching, which is the sudden cooling, in water or other fluids, from red-heat. However, steel becomes very brittle when made extremely hard, and as each smith used his own method the quality of the steel varied a great deal. Often a sword made by a poor smith snapped just when it was most needed.

In those days furnaces were not hot enough to melt iron completely. To extract the iron from the iron-ore, the ore was heated as much as possible (reducing the iron to a ‘spongy’ consistency) and then hammered. This forced the bits of rock and other impurities out, leaving the iron behind. Great skill and dexterity were required, especially as tongs had not been invented and the hot metal was handled with green sticks.

Task 1

Phonetic Exercise

Practise after the speaker and learn to pronounce the words given below.

civilization /sivilai’zeiò n/; iron /’ai'n/; especially /is’pe òi'li/; oxygen /’oksij'n/; Hittites /’hitaits/; guarded /’ga:did/; furnace /’f ':nis/; eventually /i’ventò u'li/; toughness /t/\ fnis/; superior /sju:’pi'ri'/; Celtic /’seltik/; percentage /p'‘sentij/; quenching /’kwentò ih /; impurity / im’pju'riti/.

Task 2

Lexical Exercises

Exercise 1. Find the English equivalents for the words and word - combinations

given below. Use them in the sentences of your own.

самый дешевый металл; самый важный металл; легко вступающий в реакцию; Малая Азия; к югу/ северу от; распространиться как на запад, так и на восток; покрыть тонким слоем золота; твердость; производство орудий труда и оружия; кузнец; процентное содержание углерода; добавлять углерод; закаливать металл/сталь; хрупкий; производить сталь; плавить железо; жидкое вещество; примеси; щипцы.

Exercise 2.Match the English words and word-combinations given below

with their Russian equivalents.

1. to extract iron 1. химический процесс

2. chemical process 2. учиться на опыте

3. a steel article 3. качество стали

4. the fuel in the furnace 4. раскаленный докрасна

5. to learn from experience 5. добывать железо

6. the quality of the steel 6. топливо в печи

7. to melt iron completely 7. требовать большого умения

8. to vary a great deal 8. полностью расплавить железо

9. to require great skill 9. отличаться во многом друг от

друга

10. steel becomes very brittle 10. изделие из стали

11. red-heat 11. сталь становится очень хрупкой

Exercise 3.Answer the following questions

1. Why is life impossible without iron? 2. Who first discovered how to extract iron from iron ore? 3. Why did they keep this process as a closely guarded secret? 4. How did the discovery of iron spread both east and west? 5. What is smelting? 6. What did the smiths do? 7. How did they get steel? 8. What process is called quenching? 9. Were the early smiths able to melt iron completely?

Exercise 4.Complete the following statements by choosing the answer which

you think fits best. Are the other answers unsuitable? Why?

1. Man cannot live without iron because:

a) it is easy to mine it. b) it is very cheap.

c) he uses it in his everyday life.

2. The Hittite kept the process of smelting a top-secret because:

a) they wanted to use iron only for themselves.

b) it helped them to sell iron at high price.

c) they were very ptimitive people.

3. Early smiths could not produce proper steel because:

a) they did not know the right percentage of carbon.

b) the furnaces were not hot enough. c) they tried to introduce oxygen.

4. Great skill and dexterity were required to extract iron from ore because:

a) iron was heated very quickly.

b) the furnaces were not hot enough and tongs hadn’t been invented.

c) the hammer was too heavy.

Exercise 5. Give a written Russian translation of the following sentences.

Iron is the commonest of all metallic elements (symbol Fe), used in various forms. Practically all of the iron is extracted from its chemical compounds in the blast furnace. A certain amount of harmful impurities is always present in iron ore. Ferrous metals are used in industry in two general forms: cast iron and steel.

Steel is iron containing to 1.7 per cent carbon content. Pure iron is not used in industry because it is too soft.

Cast iron is a hard, brittle , non-malleable iron-carbon alloy containing 2.0 to 4.5 % carbon, 0.5 to 3% silicon and lesser amounts of sulphur, manganese and phosphorus.

Task 3.

Focus on Grammar

Exercise 1. Explain the use (or absence) of the definite article in the cases

given below.

1. Life seems impossible without iron. 2. It is the cheapest metal. 3. Asia Minor. 4. The Black Sea. 5. The most important process. 6. Iron is the sixth metal discovered by man. 7. Iron appeared in Britain in the Bronze Age. 8. The first traces of iron. 9. A small percentage of carbon. 10. The carbon comes from the fuel in the furnace in which the iron was heated. 11. Great skill and dexterity were required.

Degrees of Comparison

long - longer - the longest

important - more important - the most important

Special cases:good - better - the best

bad - worse - the worst

little - less - the least

many/much - more - the most

far - farther - the farthest

further - the furthest

With the help of the degrees of comparison we can contrast differences.

For example: Mercury has the lowest melting point.

The melting point of copper is slightly higher than gold