听力文本

Five Big Puddles

DID you ever wonder what an ant must think of us giants who tread on his ant-hills, or what he must think of a puddle of water?

There are five big puddles of water along the northern edge of the United States—at least they look like puddles on the map—as if a gigantic giant had left his wet umbrella standing and the water had trickled out over the land. We call these puddles “The Great Lakes,” for they are the biggest lakes on this side of the World, though a giant with legs a mile long would think them only puddles to wade across. Two of the lakes—the smallest two—I have already told you about. They are Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Two of the others also have Indian names, Lake Michigan, which means “Great Lake,” and Lake Huron. The Greatest Lake of all the Great Lakes is called Superior, which means simply Greater Lake, as we say a boy who is a better football player or who makes better marks is “superior” to some other boy. Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that belongs entirely to the United States, as it is entirely inside of the United States. Half of the other four lakes belong to the country north of the United States—the country called Canada—because these other lakes are along the border between the two countries. The United States owns its side of each of these lakes and out to the middle; Canada owns its side and out to the middle.

Lake Superior is not only bigger, it is higher than the other lakes. It empties its water into Lake Huron through a little river called St. Mary’s, and in this river are falls. These falls in the St. Mary’s River are called St. Mary’s Jump, because the water jumps, jumps down. These falls are not nearly as high as Niagara Falls, but they are too high for boats to go over the jump, so men had to build canals with locks around the falls to lower boats down and raise them up from one lake to the other. As there are so many boats that want to go down and up, one canal was not enough to take care of all the boats that wanted to go round the falls, so men have built five canals round St. Mary’s Jump. St. Mary’s Jump in French is Sault Ste. Marie, and as this is so difficult to say, people simply call the falls Soo, the river Soo, and the canals Soo too.

Some of the boats on the Great Lakes are as big and fine as those on the ocean; and they have to be, for the Great Lakes are like small oceans. When you are out, far out, you cannot see land, and at times there are high waves and storms, just as at sea. The chief difference is that the water in the lakes is fresh, not salt.

参考译文

五个大水坑

我们经常踩到蚂蚁窝，你是否好奇小蚂蚁会怎么看我们这些巨人呢？或者在蚂蚁眼中一个水坑是怎样的呢？

沿着美国的北部边界有五个大水坑——至少它们在地图上看起来像水坑——就像是一个庞大的巨人拿一把湿漉漉的雨伞立在那儿，水顺着雨伞滴到了地面上形成这些水坑。我们把这些水坑叫做“大湖”，因为它们是西半球最大的湖了，不过在腿长1英里的巨人眼里，这些湖就像很容易就蹚过去的小水坑。我已经介绍过其中两个湖的故事了，最小的两个——伊利湖和安大略湖。另外还有两个用印第安名字的湖——一个是密歇根湖，意思是“大湖”，另一个是休伦湖。五大湖中最大的是苏必利尔湖，意思就是更大的湖，就像我们会说一个孩子球踢得更好，得分更高，也会用同样的一个词：优秀的（superior）[1]。五大湖中只有密歇根湖整个都在美国境内，因此是完全属于美国的。其他四个大湖每个都有一半属于美国北边的邻国——加拿大，因为这四个湖正好在两国的交界处。这些湖以湖中心线为界，分属加、美两国。

苏必利尔湖不仅面积最大，地势也最高。它的湖水经由一条叫做圣玛丽的小河流入休伦湖，圣玛丽河上有很多瀑布。这些瀑布叫做圣玛丽急流瀑布，因为水急速下泻，就像是在不断蹦跳。这些瀑布远没有尼亚加拉瀑布那么高，但是船只却无法直接从上面开下去，于是人们只好在瀑布附近开凿运河，河里有船闸，这样船只就可以在大湖之间上下来往了。那里有很多的船只要往返穿梭，一条运河远远不够，人们在圣玛丽急流瀑布附近一共修建了五条运河。圣玛丽急流瀑布在法语中叫做“苏圣玛里”，很不好念，人们干脆就叫这些瀑布“苏”，叫这条河“苏”，也叫运河“苏”。

五大湖上的有些船像海洋上的船那样巨大壮观；这也是航行的需要，因为五大湖就像是小型的海洋。当你离岸远去，就看不见陆地了，湖上时有暴风雨，波涛汹涌，就像在海上一样。主要的区别就是湖水是淡水，海水则是咸水。