酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

The Story of Mankind-Part1_Hendrik van Loon(1882-1944)_Academic Readings-第3页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共3页
HIGH Up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there



stands a rock. It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles

wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this



rock to sharpen its beak.

When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day



of eternity will have gone by.

THE SETTING OF THE STAGE



WE live under the shadow of a gigantic question mark.

Who are we?



Where do we come from?

Whither are we bound?



Slowly, but with persistent courage, we have been pushing

this question mark further and further towards that distant



line, beyond the horizon, where we hope to find our answer.

We have not gone very far.



We still know very little but we have reached the point

where (with a fair degree of accuracy) we can guess at many



things.

In this chapter I shall tell you how (according to our best



belief) the stage was set for the first appearance of man.

If we represent the time during which it has been possible for



animal life to exist upon our planet by a line of this length,

then the tiny line just below indicates the age during which



man (or a creature more or less resembling man) has lived

upon this earth.



Man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for

the purpose of conquering the forces of nature. That is the



reason why we are going to study him, rather than cats or

dogs or horses or any of the other animals, who, all in their



own way, have a very interesting historical development behind

them.



In the beginning, the planet upon which we live was (as far

as we now know) a large ball of flaming matter, a tiny cloud of



smoke in the endless ocean of space. Gradually, in the course

of millions of years, the surface burned itself out, and was covered



with a thin layer of rocks. Upon these lifeless rocks the

rain descended in endless torrents, wearing out the hard



granite and carrying the dust to the valleys that lay hidden between

the high cliffs of the steaming earth.



Finally the hour came when the sun broke through the

clouds and saw how this little planet was covered with a few



small puddles which were to develop into the mighty oceans of

the eastern and western hemispheres.



Then one day the great wonder happened. What had been

dead, gave birth to life.



The first living cell floated upon the waters of the sea.

For millions of years it drifted aimlessly with the currents.



But during all that time it was developing certain habits that

it might survive more easily upon the inhospitable earth. Some



of these cells were happiest in the dark depths of the lakes and

the pools. They took root in the slimy sediments which had



been carried down from the tops of the hills and they became

plants. Others preferred to move about and they grew



strange jointed legs, like scorpions and began to crawl along

the bottom of the sea amidst the plants and the pale green things



that looked like jelly-fishes. Still others (covered with scales)

depended upon a swimming motion to go from place to place



in their search for food, and gradually they populated the ocean

with myriads of fishes.



Meanwhile the plants had increased in number and they had

to search for new dwelling places. There was no more room



for them at the bottom of the sea. Reluctantly they left the

water and made a new home in the marshes and on the mud-



banks that lay at the foot of the mountains. Twice a day the

tides of the ocean covered them with their brine. For the rest



of the time, the plants made the best of their uncomfortable

situation and tried to survive in the thin air which surrounded



the surface of the planet. After centuries of training, they

learned how to live as comfortably in the air as they had done in



the water. They increased in size and became shrubs and trees

and at last they learned how to grow lovely flowers which



attracted the attention of the busy big bumble-bees and the

birds who carried the seeds far and wide until the whole earth



had become covered with green pastures, or lay dark under the

shadow of the big trees. But some of the fishes too



had begun to leave the sea, and they had learned how to breathe

with lungs as well as with gills. We call such creatures amphibious,



which means that they are able to live with equal ease on the land

and in the water. The first frog who crosses your path can tell you



all about the pleasures of the double existence of the amphibian.

Once outside of the water, these animals gradually adapted



themselves more and more to life on land. Some became reptiles

(creatures who crawl like lizards) and they shared the



silence of the forests with the insects. That they might move

faster through the soft soil, they improved upon their legs



and their size increased until the world was populated with

gigantic forms (which the hand-books of biology list under



the names of Ichthyosaurus and Megalosaurus and Brontosaurus)

who grew to be thirty to forty feet long and who could have






文章总共3页

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号