龐貝古城的秘密

時間：2019-3-26 15:03:42 作者：雅信博文翻譯

一個關于“龐貝城”的故事，與雅信博文翻譯公司一起了解一下當地的“灰末”吧~~~

"The article called the site a ‘Pompeii of prehistoric animals,' " he told me, "which was unfortunate because just afterward we realized that the animals hadn't died suddenly at all. They were all suffering from something called hypertrophic pulmonary osteodystrophy, which is what you would get if you were breathing a lot of abrasive ash—and they must have been breathing a lot of it because the ash was feet thick for hundreds of miles." He picked up a chunk of grayish, claylike dirt and crumbled it into my hand. It was powdery but slightly gritty. "Nasty stuff to have to breathe," he went on, "because it's very fine but also quite sharp. So anyway they came here to this watering hole, presumably seeking relief, and died in some misery. The ash would have ruined everything. It would have buried all the grass and coated every leaf and turned the water into an undrinkable gray sludge. It couldn't have been very agreeable at all."
“文章把這個地方稱之為‘史前動物的龐貝城’，”他對我說，“這是很不幸的，因為過不多久我們就發現動物們根本不是突然死去的。它們都患了一種名叫‘肺骨營養不良’的毛病。吸入大量有腐蝕作用的灰末，就會得這種毛病──它們肯定吸入了大量的這類灰末，因為幾米厚的灰末綿延數公里。”他拾起一團灰白色的、黏土似的泥土，研碎了放到我的手里。土是粉末狀的，但有點兒像砂。“吸入這玩意兒是很難受的，”他接著說，“它又細又很鋒利。反正它們來到這個水坑，很可能是想要歇息片刻，結果在痛苦中死去。這種灰末能毀滅一切。它會淹沒野草，牢牢地粘在葉子上，把水變成一種不宜飲用的灰色稀泥。喝了肯定是會很不舒服的。”
The BBC documentary had suggested that the existence of so much ash in Nebraska was a surprise. In fact, Nebraska's huge ash deposits had been known about for a long time. For almost a century they had been mined to make household cleaning powders like Comet and Ajax. But curiously no one had ever thought to wonder where all the ash came from.
那部《地平線》記錄片指出，在內布拉斯加存在這么多的灰末是一件想不到的事。實際上，很久以來，人們就知道內布拉斯加沉積著大量的灰末。差不多有一個世紀時間，灰末被開采出來用做原料，制造像彗星牌和埃阿斯牌這樣的家用去污粉。但是，有意思的是，誰也沒有想到去考慮一下這么多的灰末是從哪里來的。
"I'm a little embarrassed to tell you," Voorhies said, smiling briefly, "that the first I thought about it was when an editor at the National Geographic asked me the source of all the ash and I had to confess that I didn't know. Nobody knew."
“說來有點難為情，”沃里斯微微一笑說，“倒是《國家地理雜志》的一位編輯問我，這么多的灰末是從哪兒來的？我不得不承認，我不知道。也沒有人知道。這時候，我才想到了這個問題。”