國家地理:加里曼丹島的地底洞天(12)

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Sarawak Chamber was so big, Mad Phil explained, that it almost certainly contained new passages—particularly in the roof, where no one had ever searched. Although it's tempting to think of caves as similar to mine shafts—tunnels that slope relatively straightforwardly down—natural caves are nonlinear and ex-pand and contract according to the movement of rocks, the meandering of water, the work of chaos.

瘋狂菲爾解釋道，砂拉越洞穴太大了，幾乎可以肯定里面還有新通道--尤其是在洞頂，那里還沒有人搜尋過。雖然人們很可能覺得洞穴與礦井很相似--都是斜向下的隧道--但自然洞穴是非線性的，并且是隨著巖石運動、水流流淌和混亂興起而擴張和收縮的。

Concepts of "up" and "down" assume subtler meanings underground, where directions can be utterly inverted over a few million years. If someone is exploring the down part of the cave, another caver might try looking up. And up was Mad Phil's specialty.

“上”和“下”的概念是指地下的細微差別，在幾百萬年的時間里，地下的方向可能會完全顛倒。如果一個探險者在探索洞穴底部，那么另一個探險者就應該試著在頂部探險。而頂部探險正是瘋狂菲爾的專長。

His nickname apparently had come from a canoeing stunt during his university years, but Mad Phil was known for climbing cave walls that no one else would even attempt. He and Eavis planned to ascend into the roof of Sarawak Chamber, searching for tunnels that ran through it like hidden passages in the ceiling of a mansion.

顯然，他的綽號來自他大學時代的一次皮劃艇特技表演，但人們知道瘋狂菲爾是因為他能夠攀爬別人連試都不敢的巖壁。他和艾維斯計劃爬上砂拉越洞穴的頂部，尋找貫穿其中的隧道，就像大廈天花板上隱藏的通道一樣。