英语听书《白鲸记》第870期

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a short street opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; （多芬纳路是一条差不多直通向杜依勒利宫的小街）

and bones disinterred in excavating⁴ the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's time. 以及在拿破仑时代，在挖安特卫普大码头时所发现的骨头。

Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly⁵ unknown Leviathanic species. 居维埃宣称这些断片都应该属于一种绝对弄不清楚的鲸类。

But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics⁶ was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on the plantation⁷ of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. 但是，在这些鲸类遗物中最为奇怪的是，一八四二年在亚拉巴马州克雷法官农场上所发现的一只远古的巨兽的差不多是完整的骷髅。

The awe-stricken credulous⁸ slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels. 附近那些吓得要命的朴实的黑奴，竟把它当成是天上下降的天使的尸骨。

The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile⁹, and bestowed¹⁰ upon it the name of Basilosaurus. 亚拉巴马的医生都一致说它是一只大爬虫类，还给它取上一个名字：巴西洛梭鲁斯。

But some specimen¹¹ bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, 但是，等到把一些骨头标本，横渡大西洋送到英国那位解剖学家欧文那里去后，

it turned out that this alleged¹² reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. 却发现这所谓爬虫的东西原来就是大鲸，虽然这是早已湮没的一种鲸类。

A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book, 这一意义重大的例证已在本书中一再说过了，

that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully¹³ invested body. 就是认为鲸骷髅是跟它原来的形体毫不相同的。

So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, 因此，欧文又把这巨兽另行命名为宙格洛东，而且当他在伦敦地质学会上宣读他的论文时，

pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted¹⁴ out of existence. 还宣称它实际上就是由于地球的变化，目前已经湮没的一种最非凡的动物。

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