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People who thought their farms had been spoiled by oil found that the oil was worth a fortune, worth much more than what they could make out of chickens and pigs, or corn and wheat. Some wells had to be dug and the oil pumped up, but others sprouted up like fountains—these were called gushers.

This oil that comes out of the rock underneath the ground is called petroleum, which means rock oil. Some of the petroleum companies are nicknamed “Pete” for short, which is a pretty good name because Pete means “rock.”

If you take a train by the middle route you cross Iowa, the Corn State, passing through endless fields of corn. You next cross Nebraska and gradually rise higher and higher as the ground slopes gently upward, until you reach the State called Colorado. Colorado means “color red.” Colorado is at the foot of the highest mountains in America—they are called the Rocky Mountains. The capital of Colorado is Denver and Denver is just about half-way from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean.

Not so far from Denver you can climb to the top of a Rocky Mountain peak, if you want to and if you have a good heart. The first man who tried to climb this mountain was named Pike, but he gave it up, so ever since it has been called “Pike’s Peak.” When I was in school we used to try to say this “tongue-twister”: “Speak Pike, Speak Pike, Speak Pike” over and over as fast as we could without saying “Pike’s Peak.” We couldn’t do it—neither can you! Pike couldn’t climb to the top of his mountain, but nowadays thousands of people climb to the top each year just as a “stunt” to see in how many hours they can do it. Pike’s Peak is so high that there is snow on the top in the summer as well as in the winter, and it is so high in the air that there is very little air to breathe when you are at the top. A great many people cannot stand it at the top; they have to sit down. They gasp for breath as if they had been running, or like a fish out of water; their hearts beat fast and so hard they can hear it drumming in their ears, and they feel faint and weak. There are now an auto road and a railway up to the top, so that you don’t have to climb Pike’s Peak if you don’t want to. The railway track, however, is so steep that an ordinary railway car would slide down like a sled, so the track has small iron steps between the rails, and the car has a wheel that catches into the steps so that it cannot slip backward or run away down-hill—it walks up and down the steps.

参考译文

那些以为农田被油毁掉的人发现这种油有巨大的价值，远比他们养鸡养猪或种玉米小麦能赚的钱更多。要获得矿物油就得先挖井，然后把油用泵抽上来，但是有些地方油就像喷泉一样自然冒出来——这种叫做自喷井。

这种来自于地下岩石中的油叫做石油，顾名思义，就是“石中的油”。有些石油公司被人用简称戏称为“皮特”，这是个很不错的名字，因为皮特的意思就是“岩石”。

如果你乘火车从中线走的话，你会横穿“玉米之州”爱荷华，要经过无边无际的玉米地。接下来你会穿过内布拉斯加州，慢慢地，地势越来越高，最后到达叫做科罗拉多的州。科罗拉多的意思是“红颜色”。科罗拉多位于美国最高山脉的山脚下——这个山脉叫做落基山脉。科罗拉多州的州府是丹佛，丹佛差不多位于从芝加哥到太平洋的中途。

你可以在离丹佛不远的地方出发，登上落基山脉的顶峰，条件是你有这样的意愿，又有一颗强劲的心脏。第一个尝试登顶的人叫派克，但是他中途放弃了，从那之后这座山峰就被叫做“派克峰”。我上学的时候我们经常说的“绕口令”是：“说派克，说派克，说派克”，一遍又一遍，能说多快就说多快，而不会说成“派克峰”。我们做不到——你也做不到！派克没能登上以他名字命名的山峰，但是现在每年都有成千上万的人爬到山顶，只是为了展现自己的“特技”，比一比看谁能更快登顶。派克峰巍峨高耸，不论是冬天还是夏天山顶都白雪皑皑，地势越高，空气越稀薄，人在山顶会感到呼吸困难。很多人在山顶受不了，只好坐下来。他们就像刚跑过步一样，或者就像鱼儿离开了水一样大口大口吸气；此时心跳快速有力，能清楚听到自己“咚咚”的心跳声，人们感觉眩晕虚弱。现在有公路和铁路通往山顶，你可以选择坐车登上派克峰。然而，火车轨道非常陡峭，如果使用普通的火车，车厢会像雪橇一样滑下来。人们就在轨道上的两条铁轨之间铺设了有小“台阶”的齿轨，火车配有齿轮，行驶的时候齿轮卡着齿轨上的“台阶”一步一步向前走，这样火车就不会向后滑或脱轨冲下山——它是顺着台阶上山下山的。