《新概念英语》青少版第四册第47课:Television Day:The sea

Lesson47 Television Day:The sea
第47课 电视日:海洋
If you looked at the Pacific from a space-capsule
如果你从宇宙飞船船舱观察太平洋,
you might think that the world was all water.
你也许会认为地球是一片海洋.
You would hardly be able to see any land at all.
你几乎看不到一点陆地.
Water covers most of the earth's surface.
地球表面的大部分是由水覆盖着的.
The sea contains a large number of substances,besides common salt.
海洋还含有大量的其他物质,除了盐以外.
If you boiled away some sea-water,
如果你把一些海水煮干,
you would find over forty different materials.
你就能发现有40多种物质.
For instance,out of a cubic mile of water
举例说,从一立方英里的水中
you would get ninety-four tons of silver and three tons of gold.
就能提取94吨银子和3吨金子.
If it were possible to do this,
即使有可能这么做的话,
it still wouldn't be worth the trouble.
也不值得.
It would cost more to obtain these precious metals than they are worth.
要获取这些有价值的金属的成本要高于它们自身的价值.
But the sea provides us with a great many materials which we can obtain easily
不过,海洋为我们提供了大量的物质
and which we use a lot.
我们易于获取并使用广泛的.
For instance,we use huge quantities of sand in industry to make glass,
例如,在工业上我们使用大量的沙子制作玻璃、
detergents and cement.
洗涤剂和水泥.
Besides materials like salt and sand,
除了诸如盐和沙子这类物质外,
we obtain a great deal of food from the sea.
我们还从海洋中获取大量食物.
One day we may even have undersea farms.
有朝一日我们还能有海底农场呢?
We have hardly begun to explore the sea.
我们尚没有开始探索海洋
In some ways it is less familiar than outer space.
从某些方面说,海洋比宇宙空间还要陌生.