新东方背诵文选 L30 The origin of Refrigerators
时间：2018-12-15 作者：英语课 分类：新东方背诵文选
英语课
By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns 1, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers 2 in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War( 1861-
1865),as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880,half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor 3 of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.
Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense 4 notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize 5 ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation 6 and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.
But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium 7 price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.
1 taverns
n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 )
- They ain't only two taverns. We can find out quick." 这儿只有两家客栈，会弄明白的。” 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
- Maybe ALL the Temperance Taverns have got a ha'nted room, hey, Huck?" 也许所有的禁酒客栈都有个闹鬼的房间，喂，哈克，你说是不是？” 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
2 dealers
n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者
- There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
- The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。
3 precursor
n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆
- Error is often the precursor of what is correct.错误常常是正确的先导。
- He said that the deal should not be seen as a precursor to a merger.他说该笔交易不应该被看作是合并的前兆。
4 commonsense
adj.有常识的；明白事理的；注重实际的
- It is commonsense to carry an umbrella in this weather.这种天气带把伞是很自然的。
- These results are no more than a vindication of commonsense analysis.这些结果只不过是按常理分析得出的事实。
5 economize
v.节约，节省
- We're going to have to economize from now on. 从现在开始，我们不得不节约开支。
- We have to economize on water during the dry season. 我们在旱季不得不节约用水。
6 insulation
n.隔离；绝缘；隔热
- Please examine the insulation of the electric wires in my house.请检查一下我屋子里电线的绝缘情况。
- It is always difficult to assure good insulation between the electric leads.要保证两个电触头之间有良好的绝缘总是很困难的。