万物简史 第463期:生命在前进(5)

 Even now, as Fortey says, it can be startling to go to the right formation of rocks 福泰说，即使现在，要是你来到合适的岩石结构，

and to work your way upward through the eons finding no visible life at all, 一个又一个漫长的历史时期地往里发掘，没有发现可见的生命，

and then suddenly "a whole Profallotaspis or Elenellus as big as a crab¹ will pop into your waiting hands." 然后突然之间，“一个螃蟹大小的完整的Profallotaspis或Elenellus跳进了你那等候的手里”，

These were creatures with limbs, gills, nervous systems, probing antennae², "a brain of sorts," in Fortey's words, and the strangest eyes ever seen. 这仍可能是一件令人惊喜的事，它们是有肢、有鳃、有神经系统、有触角、“有某种大脑”（用福泰的话来说）、有最古怪眼睛的动物。

Made of calcite rods, the same stuff that forms limestone³, they constituted the earliest visual systems known. 那种眼睛是由形成灰岩的同一种材料即方解石杆状体形成的，是已知的最早的视觉系统。

More than this, the earliest trilobites didn't consist of just one venturesome species but dozens, and didn't appear in one or two locations but all over. 不仅如此，最早的三叶虫不是只有一个好冒险的品种，而是有几十个品种；不是只出现在一两个地方，而是无处不在。

Many thinking people in the nineteenth century saw this as proof of God's handiwork and refutation of Darwin's evolutionary⁴ ideals. 19世纪的许多思想家以此来证明这是上帝的杰作，用来驳斥达尔文的进化论。

If evolution proceeded slowly, they asked, then how did he account for this sudden appearance of complex, fully⁵ formed creatures? 他们责问，假如进化是很缓慢的话，他怎么解释那些复杂而又完全成形的动物会出现得如此突然？

The fact is, he couldn't. 事实是，他无法解释。

And so matters seemed destined⁶ to remain forever until one day in 1909, 因此，问题似乎永远无法解决。直到l909年的某一天，

three months shy of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, 也就是距离达尔文出版《物种起源》50周年还有三个月的时候，

when a paleontologist named Charles Doolittle Walcott made an extraordinary find in the Canadian Rockies. 一位名叫查尔斯·杜利特尔·沃尔科特的古生物学家在加拿大境内的落基山脉有了一项重大的发现。

Walcott was born in 1850 and grew up near Utica, New York, 沃尔科特生于l850年，在纽约州尤蒂卡附近长大。

in a family of modest means, which became more modest still with the sudden death of his father when Walcott was an infant. 由于父亲在查尔斯小时候突然死去，本来不大富裕的家境变得更不富裕。

1 crab   

n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气

参考例句：

• I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
• The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。

2 antennae   

n.天线；触角

参考例句：

• Sometimes a creature uses a pair of antennae to swim.有时某些动物使用其一对触须来游泳。
• Cuba's government said that Cubans found watching American television on clandestine antennae would face three years in jail.古巴政府说那些用秘密天线收看美国电视的古巴人将面临三年监禁。

3 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

4 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

5 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

6 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。