英語聽書《白鯨記》第870期

Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly unknown Leviathanic species.

在這些遺物中最為希奇的是，一七七九年在巴黎的多芬納路發(fā)掘出了一塊頭殼（多芬納路是一條差不多直通向杜依勒利宮（杜依勒利宮——一五六六年法國葉卡特琳娜·德·美第奇王后所選定而建造的皇宮，法國大革命時(shí)被燒毀。）的小街）；以及在拿破侖時(shí)代，在挖安特衛(wèi)普（安特衛(wèi)普——比利時(shí)北部一個(gè)工商業(yè)大城，一七九四年為法國所陷，拿破侖于一八零三年想將其構(gòu)成一個(gè)商業(yè)和軍事基地以抗英國，特投資二百萬鎊構(gòu)造新碼頭。）大碼頭時(shí)所發(fā)現(xiàn)的骨頭。居維埃宣稱這些斷片都應(yīng)該屬于一種絕對弄不清楚的鯨類。

But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence.

但是，在這些鯨類遺物中最為奇怪的是，一八四二年在亞拉巴馬州克雷法官農(nóng)場上所發(fā)現(xiàn)的一只遠(yuǎn)古的巨獸的差不多是完整的骷髏。附近那些嚇得要命的樸實(shí)的黑奴，竟把它當(dāng)成是天上下降的天使的尸骨。亞拉巴馬的醫(yī)生都一致說它是一只大爬蟲類，還給它取上一個(gè)名字：巴西洛梭魯斯（巴西洛梭魯斯——據(jù)說是美國一個(gè)叫做哈蘭醫(yī)生對發(fā)現(xiàn)于北美、新西蘭、歐洲以及埃及等地的化石巨獸所下的名稱（作者所指大約就是哈蘭等醫(yī)生），后被歐文稱為鯨類化石，作者以下所述都是事實(shí)。）。但是，等到把一些骨頭標(biāo)本，橫渡大西洋送到英國那位解剖學(xué)家歐文那里去后，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)這所謂爬蟲的東西原來就是大鯨，雖然這是早已湮沒的一種鯨類。這一意義重大的例證已在本書中一再說過了，就是認(rèn)為鯨骷髏是跟它原來的形體毫不相同的。因此，歐文又把這巨獸另行命名為宙格洛東，而且當(dāng)他在倫敦地質(zhì)學(xué)會(huì)上宣讀他的論文時(shí)，還宣稱它實(shí)際上就是由于地球的變化，目前已經(jīng)湮沒的一種最非凡的動(dòng)物。

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