Today, however, Shark Bay is a tourist attraction, 然而，今天，沙春湾成了个旅游胜地，

　　or at least as much of a tourist attraction as a place hundreds of miles from anywhere much and dozens of miles from anywhere at all can ever be. 至少是一个不着边际的地方有可能成为的那种旅游胜地。

　　Boardwalks have been built out into the bay so that visitors can stroll over the water to get a good look at the stromatolites, quietly respiring just beneath the surface. 用木板架成的人行道伸进了海湾，游客们可以在不的上方漫步，好好看一眼叠层石就在水面之下静静地呼吸。

　　They are lusterless and gray and look, as I recorded in an earlier book, like very large cow-pats. 叠层石没有光泽，灰色，看上去很像个大团的牛屎。

　　But it is a curiously giddying moment to find yourself staring at living remnants of Earth as it was 3.5 billion years ago. 但是，望着地球上35亿年前留下的生物，这是个令人眼花缭乱的时刻。

　　As Richard Fortey has put it: "This is truly time traveling, and if the world were attuned to its real wonders this sight would be as well-known as the pyramids of Giza." 正如理查德·福泰说的：“这确实是跨越时间的旅行。要是世界与它真正的奇迹合拍的话，这个景致会和吉萨的金字塔一样知名。”

　　Although you'd never guess it, these dull rocks swarm with life, 虽然你根本不会去猜，但这些晦暗的岩石上充满了生命，

　　with an estimated (well, obviously estimated) three billion individual organisms on every square yard of rock. 据估计（哎呀，显然是估计），每平方米岩石上生活着36亿个微生物。

　　Sometimes when you look carefully you can see tiny strings of bubbles rising to the surface as they give up their oxygen. 要是你看得仔细的话，你有时候能看到一串串小气泡冒出水面。那是它们在释放氧气。

　　In two billion years such tiny exertions raised the level of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere to 20 percent, 在20亿年时间里，这咱小小的努力使地球大气里的氧增加到了20%，

　　preparing the way for the next, more complex chapter in life's history. 为生命史的下一章也是更复杂的一章铺平了道路。