听力文本

At the city of Baku on the side of the Caspian Sea there are so many oil-wells and so much oil that it seems to get into everything. You see it, smell it, feel it, and taste it. As there are no rivers flowing out of the Caspian Sea, no ships can get to the ocean from Baku, so a way had to be found to carry the oil to a place where ships could come and get it. The nearest place where a ship could come was over seven hundred miles away, a place called Batum on the Black Sea, so they laid a huge pipe seven hundred miles long to carry the oil from Baku to Batum, where it is put into boats called oil tankers and carried away.

The highest mountains and the longest river in Europe are both in Russia. The mountains are the Caucasus, on the southern edge of Russia, between the Black and the Caspian Seas. They are higher than the ALps.

Most rivers we say “run,” but the longest river in Europe is also the slowest. It is the Volga. It moves so slowly it is hard to tell whether it is going or coming. It “walks” into the Caspian Sea. In the Volga River big fish are caught called sturgeon. The sturgeon’s eggs are called caviar, and caviar is considered a great delicacy, though one usually has to learn to like it. Caviar is probably the most expensive food there is—a very little costs so much: a pound of caviar costs almost a hundred times as much as a pound of beefsteak—perhaps that is one reason why people like it.

The most precious metal in the World is not silver, not gold, but a metal called platinum. Platinum looks something like silver, but there is so little of it that it costs more than gold.

On the eastern edge of Russia, which is also the eastern edge of Europe, there is a range of mountains called the Ural Mountains; they are not very high, in fact they are not much more than hills. In these mountains platinum is found.

There is a peculiar kind of rock found in Russia. The rock is like bundles of silky threads, which can be made into a kind of cloth. It is called asbestos. As asbestos cloth is made from rock it will not burn. A king long ago had a table-cloth made of asbestos. People didn’t know about asbestos at that time, so the king used to amaze his dinner guests by throwing the table-cloth into the fire after dinner was over, then after a while taking it out unburned. We use asbestos to cover hot pipes, for firemen’s suits, and for roofs of houses, as it will not burn, no matter how hot it is heated. Asbestos is also found in parts of the United States and Canada.

参考译文

在里海边的巴库城有很多很多油田，出产大量的石油，似乎什么东西都沾上了石油。你随处可以看到它、闻到它、摸到它、尝到它。由于没有河流从里海流出，船只不能从巴库到达海洋，所以必须想个法子，将石油送到可以装船再运走的地方。船只可以到达的最近的地方，是在700多英里以外的、黑海边上一个叫“巴统”的地方，于是人们铺设了一条长达700多英里的巨型管道，将石油从巴库输送到巴统，然后石油被装进油船运到各地。

欧洲最高的山脉和最长的河流都在俄罗斯。最高的山脉是位于俄罗斯南部边界、在黑海和里海之间的高加索山脉，比阿尔卑斯山脉还要高。

我们说大多数河流是“流动”的。但是欧洲最长的河流却是水流最慢的河流，它就是伏尔加河。伏尔加河的水流非常缓慢，你甚至很难区分河水是朝哪个方向流的。它像是“缓步”汇入了里海。在伏尔加河人们常常捕捉一种叫鲟鱼的大鱼。鲟鱼的卵可以做成鱼子酱，鱼子酱被认为是一种美味佳肴，不过要习惯它的味道得有一个过程。鱼子酱可能是世界上最贵的食物了—一点点鱼子酱就要花很多钱：一磅鱼子酱的价格几乎是一磅牛排的一百倍—也许这是人们喜欢它的一个原因。

世界上最珍贵的金属不是白银也不是黄金，而是一种叫做白金的金属。白金看起来有点像银，但是全世界白金储量很少，所以它比黄金还贵。

在俄罗斯边疆，也是欧洲的东部边界，有一条山脉叫乌拉尔山脉。乌拉尔山脉比较低矮，甚至比丘陵也高不了多少，就是在这些山脉中人们发现了白金。

在俄罗斯，人们发现了一种特别的岩石。这种岩石就像一束束的丝线，可以做成一种布料。这种岩石叫石棉。因为石棉布是用岩石做成的，所以不会燃烧。很久以前，一个国王有一块用石棉做的桌布。人们那时并不了解石棉，所以国王常常用完餐后将桌布扔进火中，一会儿又从火中拿出来，而桌布一点没烧坏，国王的客人看了感到惊奇不已。石棉被用来包裹热管道、也可用作消防员制服和屋顶的材料，因为不管它被加热到多高的温度都不会燃烧。在美国和加拿大的一些地区，也发现了石棉。