听力文本

The Mississippi River really cuts our country into two parts, but the two parts are not the same size. The part west of the Mississippi is about twice as big as the part east of the Mississippi.

The Mississippi River hardly gets a good running start on its long journey south to the Gulf of Mexico before it falls down, and where it falls men have built big mills, the wheels of which are turned by the falling water. These mills, however, are not like those in New England. They do not make things. They grind wheat to make flour to make bread, for more and better wheat grows near where the Mississippi starts and the States near-by than anywhere else in the whole World.

An acre seems to me, who lives in a city, a large piece of ground, a hundred acres seems immense, and a thousand acres seems enormous, but some farms in Minnesota where they raise wheat have as many as ten thousand acres of wheat in a single farm! The farmers would never get through planting or gathering the wheat if they did so by hand or even with a horse. So they plow with an engine and often with ten plows in a row, and they use machines for gathering the wheat and for separating the grains of the wheat from the straw, which has to be done before it can be ground into flour.

On opposite sides of the Mississippi near these falls two large cities of almost the same size have grown up. These two cities are connected by a bridge, and they are so nearly the same size they are called Twin Cities. One of them is named Minneapolis, which means “Water City,” as Annapolis means “Anna’s City”; and the other is named St. Paul. Notice that almost all names around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi are named either after saints or after Indians. That’s because priests were among the first to come to this country to make the Indians Christians, and they named places either after the Indians or after the Christian saints.

The water city—Minneapolis—is the greatest flour-making place in the whole World. I have to say “in the whole World” so often, I’m going to use only the first letters from now on—i for “in,” t for “the,” w for “whole,” W for “World”—thus: Minneapolis is the greatest flour-making place Minnesota and the States near it are the greatest wheat-raising States

参考译文

密西西比河实际上把美国分成了大小不同的两部分。河西的这一部分大约是河东的那一部分的两倍大。

在密西西比河向南流入墨西哥湾的长途行程中，地势都比较平缓，没有很大落差。在墨西哥湾的入海口，河水倾泻而下，这里人们修建了很多巨大的磨坊，磨坊的轮子是由落下的河水推动的。然而这些磨坊和新英格兰的磨坊不一样。这些磨坊并不生产东西。它们把小麦磨成做面包的面粉，因为密西西比河的发源地和附近各州产出的小麦比世界上任何地方的小麦都要多，质量也更好。

在我这样的城里人看来，一英亩好像是很大一块地，一百英亩更像是大得无边无际，一千英亩就像大得无法想象了。但是明尼苏达州有些种植小麦的农场仅一个农场就有多达一万英亩的小麦田！要是光靠双手或者即使用马干活，这些农民永远种不完或割不完小麦。因此他们用机械犁具耕地，经常一排十个犁具同时开动，还使用机器收割小麦，并把麦穗和麦秆分开，这是把小麦磨成面粉之前必须完成的农活。

沿密西西比河东西两岸，离瀑布很近的地方建起了两个面积几乎一样的大城市。这两个城市由一座桥连接起来，它们大小几乎相同，所以被称做“双子城”。其中一个叫做明尼阿波利斯，意思是“水城”，就像安娜纳波利斯的意思是“安纳之城”一样；另一个叫做圣保罗。请注意看，五大湖区和密西西比河附近几乎所有地名都是以基督教圣徒或印第安语的名字而命名的。那是因为最早来美国的人中有一些牧师，他们在印第安人中传播基督教，于是他们用印第安人的名字或者基督教圣徒的名字来给一些地方命名。

水城—明尼阿波利斯—是全世界最大的面粉产地。明尼苏达州和附近各州是全世界最大的小麦种植地。