Eager to benefit his country, and conscious that he was capable of doing so, he made practical application of many important improvements in architecture, navigation, mining, and manufacturing industries.

For example: in 1750 he zealously engaged in the manufacture of glass (with the aid of the government), set up a glass-factory, and applied his chemical knowledge to colored glass for mosaics.

The great mosaic pictures which glorify Peter the Great, and the vast, magnificent _ikoni_ (holy pictures) which adorn the Cathedral of St.Isaac of Dalmatia, in St.Petersburg, are the products of those factories, which still exist and thrive.
It is impossible to narrate in detail all Lomonosoff's enterprises for the improvement of the economic condition of the masses, his government surveys of Russia, ethnographical and geographical aims, and the like.
His administrative labors absorbed most of his time leaving little for literary work.

Like others of his day, he regarded literature as an occupation for a man's leisure hours, and even openly ridiculed those who busied themselves exclusively with it; though he ascribed to it great subsidiary importance, as a convenient instrument for introducing to society new ideas, and for expounding divers truths, both abstract and scientific.

Thus he strove to furnish Russia with models of literary productions in all classes, and to improve the language of literature and science.