海底兩萬里 第13期 第2章 正與反(2)

And indeed, unless this reef had an engine in its belly, how could it move about with such prodigious speed?

理由是：除非這暗礁在腹部有一架機器，不然的話，它怎能這樣快地一會兒到達這里一會兒又到那里呢?

Also discredited was the idea of a floating hull or some other enormouswreckage, and again because of this speed of movement.

同樣地，說它是一只浮動的船殼或是一只巨大的破船，這假設(shè)也不能成立，理由仍然是因為它轉(zhuǎn)移得那么快。

So only two possible solutions to the question were left, creating two very distinct groups of supporters:

歸根結(jié)底，這問題只可能有下面兩種解釋，因此人們分成了抱著不同主張的兩派：

on one side, those favoring a monster of colossal strength; on the other, those favoring an "underwater boat" of tremendous motor power.

一派說這是一個力大無窮的怪物，另一派說這是一艘動力十分強大的“潛水艇”。

Now then, although the latter hypothesis was completely admissible, it couldn't stand up toinquiries conducted in both the New World and the Old.

后面那種假設(shè)雖然很可以成立，但到歐美兩洲調(diào)查之后，便站不住了。

That a private individual had such a mechanism at his disposal was less than probable. Where and when had he built it, and how could he have built it in secret?

如果說私人可以有這樣一種機器，實在是不大可能的事。

Only some government could own such an engine of destruction, and in these disaster-filled times,

在什么地方，什么時候。他造了這個東西?他又怎能保守秘密而不泄露呢?

when men tax their ingenuity to build increasingly powerful aggressive weapons, it was possible that,

只有一國政府可以擁有這種破壞性的機器，在人們絞盡腦汁要增強武器威力的不幸時代，

unknown to the rest of the world, some nation could have been testing such a fearsome machine.

一個國家瞞著其他國家制造這種武器是可能的。