英语听书《白鲸记》第869期

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and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns³ of all sorts. 也做过壕沟、运河、水井、酒窖、地窖，以及各种各样水槽的挖掘巨匠。

Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, 而且，我还要开门见山地提请读者注意，

that while in the earlier geological strata⁴ there are found the fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct; 在早期的地质层中，虽然曾经发现过巨兽的化石，可是现在都简直完全绝迹了。

the subsequent relics⁵ discovered in what are called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, 后来在我们所称为第三地层中所发现的遗物，

or at any rate intercepted⁶ links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote posterity⁷ are said to have entered the Ark; 似乎就是介于反年纪的生物间的一种联结物（总之，或者是一种阻隔物），而且那些属于这一类的后代，据说早就跑进了方舟。

all the Fossil Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last preceding the superficial formations. 迄今所发现的一切属于第三纪的化石鲸，都是表层形成前的最后一批。

And though none of them precisely⁸ answer to any known species of the present time, 虽然，在这些化石鲸中，没有一条跟现代所看到的哪一类鲸很相符合，

they are yet sufficiently⁹ akin¹⁰ to them in general respects, to justify¹¹ their taking ranks as Cetacean fossils. 然而，一般说来，这些化石鲸却还跟现代鲸类极相类似，且足以证明它们是属于同类。

Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals¹², been found at the base of the Alps,  亚当以前的大鲸的断块化石，它们的骨头和骷髅断片，在过去三十年间，都曾陆续在下列各地方找到：阿尔卑斯山脚，

in Lombardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. 伦巴底，法国，英国，苏格兰，和美国的路易斯安那州，密西西比州，亚拉巴马州。

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