时间:2018-11-30 作者:英语课 分类:听美文故事记6级单词


英语课

7.Niagara Falls-Something Completely New   


 


Niagara Falls has become a tired old tourist sight. But if you look it over in an airplane, it becomes something completely new. You realize that it is not tired; only our way of looking at it is tired.


  Most visitors go as close to the falls as possible, and watch the waters thundering down. It is fascinating, in a stupefying way. You stand there, hyptonized by the sheer 1 force, the untiring action that goes on and on. But afterward 2 you have a feeling - "So what, really? The water comes to the cliff and, naturally, it falls down."


  But at altitude you see it all at once. You see Lake Ontario on one side and Lake Erie on the other, and linking them the 34-mile Niagara River. Then, coming down lower, you see the falls themselves, along a front almost a mile wide, plunges 4 over a 182-foot cliff and flows off through a deep, narrow gorge 5. And right away, with a flash of understanding, you see the main fact about the Niagara Falls. The falls are moving, the seven-mile-long gorge is merely the track the falls have made as they move along. This instantly reverses 6 all your ideas. On the ground it seemed that the water fell because there was this low place for it to fall into the gorge. Now you see it is the other way round. The falls are the cause, and the gorge is the result. Niagara Gorge looks like the track eaten into an apple by a worm.


  Niagara differs from the waterfalls you find in mountains, where a thin stream of water comes down a mountainside, half-flying. Some of them are much higher than Niagara, and perhaps more beautiful, but they lack mass and cutting power. Niagara belongs to the heavyweights - where a whole solid river plunges bodily over a cliff


  The real sight from above is the gigantic 7 movement of the falls themselves, digging the gorge.


  The falls are still moving today. However, our century has tamed it a bit. A lot of water that used to plunge 3 down now goes through the electric power stations, both American and Canadian.

 



1 sheer
adj.绝对的,全然的,峻峭的;v.躲开,躲避,使...避开; adv.完全,全然,峻峭
  • He achieved his aim by sheer strength of will.他纯粹靠意志力达到了目的。
  • I guess It'sheer waste of time arguing about it.看来争论这件事纯粹是浪费时间。
2 afterward
adv.后来;以后
  • Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏,然后吃饭。
  • Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来,这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。
3 plunge
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲
  • Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
  • That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。
4 plunges
n.跳进,投入vt.使投入,使插入,使陷入vi.投入,跳进,陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 );暴跌;骤降;突降
  • Even before he plunges into his program, he has his audience in his pocket. 他的节目甚至还没有出场,就已控制住了观众。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • 'Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as a person plunges into the river.' “大人,他头冲下跳下山坡去了,像往河里跳一样。” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
5 gorge
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃
  • East of the gorge leveled out.峡谷东面地势变得平坦起来。
  • It made my gorge rise to hear the news.这消息令我作呕。
6 reverses
n.倒转( reverse的名词复数 );失败v.(使)反转( reverse的第三人称单数 );(使)颠倒;(使)翻转;推翻
  • After several reverses the enemy was forced to retreat. 几次失败后敌军被迫后撤。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Perhaps because of these reverses Mailer temporarily abandoned fiction. 或许正是由于这一失败,梅勒暂时放弃了小说创作。 来自辞典例句
7 gigantic
adj.巨大的,巨人似的
  • He has a gigantic appetite and eats gigantic meals.他有很大的食量,能吃很多的食物。
  • The earth may be thought of as a gigantic magnet.整个地球可以想像为一块硕大无朋的磁石。
学英语单词
acidergic
acoustic sound room
Adams-Stokes syndrome
all speed governor
Andorinha, Cachoeira
antiterrorism
area of wetted cross-section
ascending velocity
automobile elevator
baddeleyitic
biostructures
Birkhoff's theorem
boiler paint
burner firing block
cadastral file
Calamus melanochrous
calcioburbankite
camera taking characteristic
cheiloses
citizen journalist
close winded
constant delay discriminator
contingency-type distributions
crisic
Crypsis aculeata
culicoides (trithecoides) subpalpifer
cultural pot
dandering
dash thermometer
distachyon
educated guesses
elvegust
epithelialise
far - reaching significance
Fargesia communis
fault isolation
fifty fifty practice
finance and trade
finish two sides
fluperolone
full-grain
gas purifying process
grate heating intensity
hardness sensor
hartridge
horse-dealers
hotspot finder
hyperfine quantum number
IMers
in quantity
innovationists
intentional learning
interunit
inventory of taxes
jerk transducer
K. C.
labyrinthine hemorrhage
laccoptera nepalensis
larkiness
lens crystallina
libant
liquefied-gas aerosols
Lithocarpus leucodermis
magnetic oil
manometer tap
mesh gage
mpac
multi-torch flame planer
normal incident absorption coefficient
one shoot
organized anarchy
pawment
Pithecinae
podura aquatica
precray
primary training gasoline
prod type pyrometer
prolongeth
pte ltd
pull-throughs
pyromucic acid
receivables
relation to
resedimentations
rice-wheat growing area
Riemann-Hilbert problem
ship with assymmetrical afterbody
shoot the pier
slators
smilaxes
smooth-spoken
softone
stood against
success-failure
temptableness
tiranas
Tongsan-ri
Totacillin
trip-charter
undecene diacid
vergerism
zoochores