雙語+MP3|美國學生世界地理02 世界是圓的，我圍著它繞了一圈

DID you ever run away from home?
你曾離家出走過嗎？
I did—once upon a time—when I was younger than you are.
我有過，有一次在我比你還小的時候。
I wanted to see the World.
我想要去看這個世界。
My Mother had told me the World was a huge ball and that if I kept on, straight ahead, following my nose, I would go round the ball and come back to where I started.
媽媽告訴我世界是個大球，只要我一直向前走，跟著我鼻子所指的方向，我會環(huán)繞這個大球一圈，回到我出發(fā)的地方。
So early one morning, without telling any one, I set out to go around the World.
于是一天清早我沒有告訴任何人就開始出發(fā)去環(huán)繞世界了。
But I didn’t get very far before night came on, and a big kind policeman brought me back home.
但是我還沒走多遠天就黑了，一個個子高高的好心的警察把我送回了家。
When I was grown up and had no home, I started out once again to go around the World. This time I got on a train headed toward the setting sun. Night came on, but no big, kind policeman brought me back home; so I kept on and on, day after day, week after week, month after month—sometimes on trains, sometimes on boats, sometimes in automobiles, sometimes on the backs of animals—but always toward the side of the World where the sun sets, the side which the people call “the west.”
當我長大后，還沒成家的時候，我開始再次出發(fā)去環(huán)游世界。這次我坐上了一列開往太陽落山方向的火車。夜晚降臨了，但是沒有個子高高的好心的警察帶我回家；于是我一直向前行，一天又一天，一周又一周，一月又一月，有時在火車上，有時在船上，有時在汽車上，有時騎著牲畜，但始終朝向太陽下山的方向，也就是人們稱為“西方”的那一邊。
I passed broad fields and thick forests, small towns and big cities—I went over bridges, round hills, and through holes in mountains—I reached a great ocean and sailed across it on a big ship to another continent—I came to strange lands where people dressed in strange clothes, lived in strange houses, and spoke strange languages; I saw strange animals, trees, and flowers; I crossed another great ocean and at last, after many, many months, always going in the same direction, I came back here to the exact spot from which I had started. So I knew the World was round, for I had been round it—but it was not round and smooth like a tennis ball, but humpty and bumpety, and so huge that it didn’t seem like a ball at all.
我跨過了遼闊的田地，穿過茂密的森林，走過小鄉(xiāng)鎮(zhèn)和大城市——我跨過橋，繞過山，鉆過山洞——我到達一片海洋，坐上一艘大輪船橫越海洋抵達另一個大陸；我到了一些奇怪的地方，人們穿著奇怪的衣服，住在奇怪的房子里，說著奇怪的語言；我見到了奇怪的動物、樹木和花草；我跨越了另一個海洋，最終在朝著同一方向旅行了好多好多月之后，我準確地回到了我開始出發(fā)的那個地點。所以我知道世界是圓的，因為我已經(jīng)圍著它繞了一圈。但世界并不是像網(wǎng)球那樣又圓又光滑，而是像個蛋形矮胖子，而且它太大了，看起來根本不像個球。
It took me nearly half a year to go round the World—that seems like a long time, but then it was a long way—over twenty-five times a thousand miles. But others have been around the World in much faster time. The airship Graf Zeppelin flew around the World in three weeks. Two flyers took less than nine days to circle the globe in their airplane and return to their starting point, New York. An American Air Force plane flew around the World without stopping in less than four days.
我花了將近半年的時間環(huán)繞世界一周——看起來是很長的一段時間，但更是很長的一段路程——超過25個1000英里那么長。但是有人以更快的時間環(huán)繞過世界。“齊柏林飛艇”只要三個星期時間就能圍繞世界飛一圈。兩名飛行員用了不到九天的時間駕駛飛機環(huán)繞地球一周，最終回到他們的出發(fā)點——紐約。一架美國空軍飛機連續(xù)不停地飛了不到四天環(huán)繞世界一周。
If a man could start out when the sun rose in the morning and keep up with it all day long, go over the side of the World when the sun set, and keep up with it on the other side of the World, he would be back again where he started the next morning. He then would have gone round the World in one day. But to do that he would have to travel over 1,000 miles an hour to keep up with the sun for each of the twenty-four hours in a day and night.
如果一個人能在早晨太陽升起的時候出發(fā)，一整天都跟著太陽走，太陽下山的時候走完世界的一面，并且一直跟著太陽走過世界的另一面，那么他就會在第二天早晨回到他出發(fā)的地方。那他就是在一天之內(nèi)環(huán)游了全世界。但是要跟得上太陽的腳步，他必須得晝夜24小時時刻保持每小時1000英里以上的速度才行。
All around the outside of the World—as you probably know—is an ocean of air that covers everything on the World as the ocean of water covers everything in the sea. What you probably don’t know is that this ocean of air is wrapped only round the World—it does not fill the sky. Men and animals live in this ocean of air as fish live in the ocean of water, and if a huge giant picked you out of the air you would die just as quickly as a fish does when taken out of the sea. The air is thick near the ground but gets thin and thinner the higher up you go off the ground. That’s why airplanes can go up but a few miles high—there is not enough air to hold up the plane, for the plane must have air to rest on and for its propeller to push against, just as a boat in the water must have water to rest on and water for its propeller to push against. Or if it’s a jet plane, it must have air to feed its jet motors. An airplane could not rise beyond the ocean of air and sail off into the sky where there is no air any more than a steamship on the sea could rise out of the water and sail off up into the air.
也許你知道，世界的外圍包裹著一層空氣，這個空氣就像海洋一樣覆蓋著世界上所有的東西，就像大海里的水覆蓋著海里的所有東西一樣。但你可能不知道這個空氣的海洋僅僅是包裹著我們的世界，天空中并沒有。人和動物居住在這個空氣的海洋中，就像魚住在海里一樣。如果一個大巨人把你抱出了這個空氣海洋，你很快就會死掉，就像魚從水里撈出來就會死一樣?？拷孛娴牡胤娇諝獗容^濃厚，但是離開地面越高空氣就越來越稀薄。這就是為什么飛機只能飛到幾英里高的地方——更高的地方?jīng)]有足夠的空氣來支撐飛機，因為飛機必須依靠空氣，讓它的推進器推動空氣使它飛行，就像船必須停在水面上，它的推進器才可以推開水使它前行。如果是噴氣式飛機的話，必須得有空氣來填充它的噴氣式發(fā)動機。飛機不能脫離空氣的海洋飛到?jīng)]有空氣的高空中，就像海上的輪船不能離開水行駛到空中一樣。
There is only one thing that men can send up high enough to travel above the ocean of air. That is a rocket, which doesn’t depend on air for its motor or to hold it up. Someday rocket ships will probably carry men on trips to the Moon or even to the planet Mars. How would you like to go exploring in a rocket ship beyond the World’s atmosphere out through empty, airless space? How would you like to be the first Man in the Moon? You wouldn’t find any living thing on the Moon, for the Moon is a dead, lifeless ball without any air on it at all. But if your rocket got to Mars you would almost certainly find some living plants—and perhaps, who knows?—even some living animals.
人只能把一樣?xùn)|西發(fā)射到?jīng)]有空氣的高空中運行，那就是火箭，它不需要空氣推動它的發(fā)動機，也不需要空氣撐托它。也許有一天宇宙飛船可以載人飛行到月球上或是火星上[1]。你想乘一艘宇宙飛船飛出地球的大氣層，到那空無一人、沒有空氣的太空中去探險嗎？你想成為踏上月球的第一人嗎？你會發(fā)現(xiàn)月球上沒有任何生物，因為月球是一個沒有空氣、沒有生命的死星球。但是如果宇宙飛船把你帶到火星上去，也許你能發(fā)現(xiàn)一些活的植物，甚至會有活的動物，誰知道呢？
Some mountains are so high that their tops almost stick out of the ocean of air; at least, there is so little air covering their tops that people can’t go all the way to the top unless they take along canned air to breathe.
有些山非常高，高到山頂幾乎都伸出了大氣層；至少，山頂上空氣非常稀薄，所以人們不帶氧氣罐就無法一直登到山頂。
You can’t see air—you may think you can, but what you see is smoke or clouds, not air. When air is moving, we call it wind. Then you can feel it when it blows your hat off, you can hear it when it bangs the shutters and whistles round the house; but no one has ever seen air itself.
你看不到空氣——也許你覺得自己能看到，但你看到的只是煙或云，而不是空氣。空氣流動的時候，我們稱之為風。當風把你的帽子吹走的時候你可以感覺到它，當它撞著百葉窗，在房子外呼嘯的時候你可以聽到它。但是沒有人看到過空氣本身。
The World wasn’t always as it is now. It was once a ball of fire—a huge burning ball. That was millions of years ago, and of course long before there were any people or animals or plants on the World. But the fiery ball got cooler and cooler until it was no longer burning but a hot ball of rock. There were then no oceans, no water on the World, for water won’t stay on anything very hot—it won’t stay on a hot stove—it turns to steam when there is fire under it; so there were only clouds of steam, an ocean of steam, around the World. But the World kept getting cooler and cooler until at last the steam turned to water and fell on the World—rain, rain, rain, until there perhaps was one big ocean covering the whole World.
世界并不總是現(xiàn)在這個樣子的。它曾經(jīng)是一個火球——一個巨大的燃燒的球。早在世界上人、動物或植物存在以前，它已經(jīng)存在幾百萬年了。但是這個大火球逐漸冷卻，直到不再燃燒，成為一個灼熱的大石球。當時世界上沒有海洋，沒有水，因為水不能在任何熱的東西上面停留，比如說一個熱熱的火爐，當下面有火的時候，水就會變成水蒸氣。所以當時的世界上只有大團大團的水蒸氣，一個蒸汽的海洋籠罩著世界。但是世界還在持續(xù)冷卻，直到最后水蒸氣變成了水落到地球上——那就是雨，雨不停地下，直到形成了一個巨大的海洋覆蓋在世界上。
But the World still kept on cooling and cooling, and as it cooled it shrank and shriveled and wrinkled and crinkled and puckered like the outside of a prune. You know a prune was once smooth and round when it was a plum. These little wrinkles and crinkles rose up out of the ocean and were the continents and mountains, so you see how big the wrinkles and crinkles really are. The earth is still wrinkling a bit even now, and when it does so it shivers and shakes and we say there has been an earthquake. But the earthquakes nowadays are as nothing to what may have been the tremendous shudder when the continents rose out of the first single ocean. The thunderous roar of that quake may have reached the stars with a stupendous and appalling boom of a bursting, cracking, rending, groaning World, as if the last day had come. Don’t you know what stupendous and appalling boom means? Why, it means “stupendous and appalling boom.” But that’s all guess—for the continents may have risen out of the sea as softly, slowly, silently as a blade of grass grows out of the ground. No one knows. We only know the continents did rise out of the water—we can find seashells on the tops of high mountains, and we know they could only have been made under the water when the mountain was under the water.
但是世界還在繼續(xù)變涼，它在變涼的同時開始收縮、枯萎、起皺、卷縮、皺縮，最后變成像梅子干的外皮那樣。你知道梅子干或梅子是光滑滑圓溜溜的。地球上的這些小皺褶從海洋上升起變成了大陸和高山，這下你就明白這些皺褶有多么的大了。我們的地球甚至現(xiàn)在還在一點點地皺縮，當它皺縮的時候，會搖晃、震動，我們就說是發(fā)生地震了。但是和陸地在巨大的抖動中從最初的一整片海洋中升起的時候相比，現(xiàn)在的地震根本不算什么。當時的地震肯定發(fā)出了轟隆隆的呼嘯聲，世界發(fā)出了大得驚人的、可怕的爆裂聲、割裂聲和呻吟聲，這聲音大得都能傳到星星上去了，好像世界末日來臨一樣。你不知道什么是大得驚人的、可怕的轟隆聲嗎？嗯，那就是可怕的、大得驚人的轟隆聲。但這都是我們的猜測，因為也許陸地是非常輕柔地、緩慢地、悄悄地升出了海面呢，就像一片小草葉悄悄地鉆出了地面一樣。沒有人知道。我們唯一確定的就是陸地確實是從水下升上來的，因為我們能在高山頂上找到貝殼，而我們知道那只能是高山還在水下的時候形成的。