英国学生科学读本 第3期:木杆铅笔

 　　第三课 木杆铅笔

　　Have you a lead-pencil? If not, I want you to get a loan of one, and to look at it very carefully. It is made of wood—most likely of cedar¹ wood, for the wood of the cedar tree is much used for making pencils.

　　小朋友，你有木杆铅笔吗？要是没有，就借一支来，好好看看吧。木杆铅笔的木头，大部分都是杉木，也叫雪松木，因为英国的杉木很多都用来做铅笔了。

　　Do you see the name of the maker² in bright letters on the side of the pencil? You may see, too, the letters H for hard, B for black, or HB for both hard and black, which are stamped on the pencil. From these marks you know what kind of pencil it is.

　　看见了吗？铅笔的侧面，用闪闪发亮的字，印着制造商的名字。你可能也看见了，字母H代表英语的Hard（硬），字母B代表英语的Black（黑），HB就代表又硬又黑。从刻上去的这些字母，就可以知道这支铅笔是什么类型的。

　　The pencil is a round piece of wood, is it not? At each end of the pencil you can see a small square of black-lead. Now, how did the black-lead get there? Did it grow inside the wood?

　　铅笔是一根圆形的木杆，两头都可以看见里面铅笔芯的小方块。那么铅笔芯是怎么进去的呢？难道是在木头里长出来的吗？

　　Look very carefully at the ends of the pencil. Ah, you see! it is made of two strips of wood, which were glued together after the black-lead was put in.

　　仔细看看铅笔的两头。啊，看见了！铅笔是“两片”木头做的， 这两片木头，是在铅芯放进去之后，用胶黏在一起的！

　　Try to pull your pencil to pieces. If you put it in water for a while, the glue will become soft, and the two pieces of wood will come apart.

　　试试把这支铅笔拆开。把铅笔在水里泡一会儿，胶就变软了，两片木头就会分开了。

　　Then you will see that a neat little hollow was made in one of the pieces, and that a little strip of black-lead— of just the right size—was put into it. The other piece of wood was then glued over it, and the pencil was made round and smooth.

　　现在你能看见，两片木头中间都有一个精细的凹槽，长条的铅芯，做成了合适的尺寸，放在一片木头的凹槽里面，然后把另一片木头黏上去，铅笔就变成了圆形，摸起来很光滑了。

　　When you rub the point on a piece of paper, little bits of black-lead stick to the paper and make black marks. In this way the black-lead pencil is very useful for writing or drawing.

　　铅笔尖儿在纸上蹭的时候，就会有一点儿铅笔芯附着在纸上，留下黑色的印子。这样，在我们写字画画的时候，铅笔就特别有用。

　　Before you use your lead-pencil, you must sharpen one end of it with a knife. The wood will not make a black mark,so it must be cut away. Then the black-lead is left sticking out by itself to make black marks on the paper.

　　在你用木杆铅笔之前，要先用小刀把铅笔的一头削尖。木头是不会留下黑色印子的，所以得把木头削掉，这样，黑色的铅芯自己就会突出来，在纸上留下印子了。

1 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

2 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。