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VOA慢速英语2009年-EXPLORATIONS - On the Great Lakes, Not Jus

时间:2009-12-05 02:43:39

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(单词翻译)

VOICE ONE:

I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

This week, we tell about the biggest system of freshwater lakes in the world, the Great Lakes between the United States and Canada. They are busy shipping1 paths. They are also known for fierce and deadly storms. Today, we tell about the lakes and some famous shipwrecks3.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
 
A painting of Etienne Brule by F.S. Challener

Even before European explorers first saw the Great Lakes, they provided Native Americans with a way to transport goods. Probably the first European to see and explore the Great Lakes was Frenchman Etienne Brule in the early sixteen hundreds. He lived among the Huron Indians. All but one of the Great Lakes has a name from Native American languages: Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. The biggest lake, Superior, was named by the French. But the Ojibwe Indians knew it as Gitchigumi, or "big water."

VOICE TWO:

The Great Lakes are part of a waterway that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the center of North America. Ships can enter the Saint Lawrence River on the east coast of Canada and travel to Chicago, Illinois or Duluth, Minnesota.

Vessels7 on the Great Lakes are not called ships, but boats. However, boats on the lakes can be huge. The newest of the lake freighters is over three hundred meters long.

The Griffin was the one of the first sailing vessel6 on the Great Lakes and also among the first shipwrecks. French explorer and trader Rene-Robert Cavelier De La Salle, built it in sixteen seventy-nine. The boat set sail from an island in northern Lake Michigan. La Salle reached what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin. He sent the boat back home with a load of animal fur. No one ever saw the Griffin again. The loss of the Griffin established a long tradition of danger and mystery linked to Great Lakes travel.

VOICE ONE:
 
A boat entering the Soo Locks

Trade on the lakes increased. Soon, settlers came to the area. They grew crops and harvested wood, sending products to markets by boat. Then, expanding communities needed coal which was also shipped.

In the eighteen forties, iron ore was discovered in the Marquette Mountains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Iron ore, the main raw material of steel, changed the lakes area and the nation.

In eighteen fifty-five, the first canal connecting Lake Superior with Lake Huron was completed at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The Soo Locks linked iron mines near Lake Superior with the cities of Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois. Today, the Soo Locks are the world's busiest.

VOICE TWO:

Passenger travel also grew on the Great Lakes. Big steamboats carried hundreds of people between cities. But the threat of fire came with the new steam technology. The worst fire disaster happened on Lake Erie in eighteen fifty.

The G.P. Griffith was traveling from Buffalo8, New York to Chicago with about three hundred men, women and children. Many were immigrants from England, Ireland and Germany.

Not far east of Cleveland, a fire broke out. As the flames spread, passengers and crew panicked. More than a hundred people jumped into the lake and drowned. Others burned. Only a few strong swimmers survived. But not a single child and only one woman was saved.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
 
The Lady Elgin

With thousands of boats on the lakes, collisions became a real danger. The deadliest took place in eighteen sixty in southern Lake Michigan. The steamer Lady Elgin was carrying passengers from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Chicago to hear a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Stephen Douglas. As many as five to six hundred people were on board, many of Irish ancestry9.

A storm blew up on the return trip to Milwaukee. The Augusta, a boat carrying wood, was sailing south at high speed. It struck the Lady Elgin. But the Augusta's Captain D.M. Malott continued on to Chicago, failing to help victims on the passenger boat.

Captain Jack10 Wilson struggled to save the Lady Elgin. But the boat soon sank. Hundreds of passengers struggled to hold on to the floating wreckage11. Powerful waves crashing against a rocky coast drowned many people. The captain fought to save as many people as he could until he too was lost.

Northwestern University student Edward Spencer was another hero. He swam from shore and rescued seventeen people. The wreck4 of the Lady Elgin remains12 the worst loss of life on open water in the Great Lakes. Recent studies say four hundred or more people died that night.

VOICE TWO:
 
The William H. Truesdale in a storm on Lake Erie in the 1930s

As the nation's need for steel grew, bigger ships were built to carry iron ore. They sailed on the lakes until late November. Shipping in the upper Great Lakes mostly stops in late fall because of ice. But November storms can be deadly.

The worst weather disaster on the lakes happened in nineteen thirteen. The early November winds reached hurricane force and caused waves eleven meters high. By the time the storm eased, eight big boats were lost on Lake Huron alone. They included the Canadian freighter James Carruthers which disappeared with twenty-two men. Its wreck has never been found. The storm, sometimes called the "Big Blow," killed more than two hundred fifty people.

VOICE ONE:

Some of the biggest boats to ever sail the lakes have been lost in sudden November storms. In nineteen fifty-eight, the Carl D. Bradley was heading home at the end of the shipping season. It first launched thirty years before. At the time, it was the biggest boat on the Lakes. But during a storm on Lake Michigan, the Bradley split in two. Only two of its crew of thirty-five survived.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was launched the same year the Bradley sank. The Fitzgerald was two hundred twenty meters long. It was the biggest boat on the lakes when it entered service. It would become the most famous shipwreck2 of all.

Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot told the story of the tragedy in "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:
 
The Edmund Fitzgerald

On November tenth, nineteen seventy-five, the Fitzgerald was sailing on Lake Superior. It was struggling through a dangerous storm that the old sailors called a "November witch." It had lost its radar13 and the old lighthouse at Whitefish Point, Michigan was not operating.

Captain Ernest McSorley radioed another freighter, the Arthur Anderson, that his boat was taking on water. He was making for the safety of Whitefish Bay. But that night the weather got worse. The Anderson reported winds of about one hundred forty kilometers an hour and waves ten meters high.

Captain McSorley told the Anderson: "We are holding our own." But that was the last anyone heard from the Edmund Fitzgerald. The boat and twenty-nine men disappeared into Lake Superior minutes later.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
 
Exhibits inside the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point

Tom Farnquist is executive director of the Great Lakes Historical Shipwreck Society. In nineteen ninety-five, he was part of an effort to recover the Fitzgerald's bell. The bronze bell is now preserved at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, Michigan. Each year on November tenth, a ceremony is held there to remember the crew members of the Fitzgerald.

Tom Farnquist knows as much about shipwrecks on the Great Lakes as anyone.

TOM FARNQUIST: "The lakes are very treacherous14. There's over six thousand and some estimate as high as anywhere to ten to twelve thousand shipwrecks on the Great Lakes."

VOICE TWO:

Today, thousands of people dive at shipwreck preserves all around the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Historical Shipwreck Society works to preserve and explain the history and importance of the area's wrecks5. The group was established in nineteen seventy-eight. It has grown to over one thousand seven hundred members.

Each year, tens of thousands of people visit the shipwreck museum at Whitefish Point. Great Lakes shipwrecks continue to capture the imagination of Americans from all over the country.

Tom Farnquist says shipwrecks are exciting because they preserve a detailed15 picture of maritime16 life that can be hundreds of years old. He says Lake Superior may be one of the most interesting places for this kind of exploration.

TOM FARNQUIST: "It's quite a cross-section of American maritime history frozen in time on the Great Lakes. There's probably the best selection of shipwrecks anywhere in the world waiting to be found in Lake Superior."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This program was written and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. Transcripts17, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find a link to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. Join us again next week for Explorations in VOA Special English.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 shipping WESyg     
n.船运(发货,运输,乘船)
参考例句:
  • We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
  • There's a shipping charge of £5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。
2 shipwreck eypwo     
n.船舶失事,海难
参考例句:
  • He walked away from the shipwreck.他船难中平安地脱险了。
  • The shipwreck was a harrowing experience.那次船难是一个惨痛的经历。
3 shipwrecks 09889b72e43f15b58cbf922be91867fb     
海难,船只失事( shipwreck的名词复数 ); 沉船
参考例句:
  • Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing. 船只失事总是来得出人意料。
  • There are many shipwrecks in these waters. 在这些海域多海难事件。
4 wreck QMjzE     
n.失事,遇难;沉船;vt.(船等)失事,遇难
参考例句:
  • Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
  • No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。
5 wrecks 8d69da0aee97ed3f7157e10ff9dbd4ae     
n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 );(事故中)遭严重毁坏的汽车(或飞机等);(身体或精神上)受到严重损伤的人;状况非常糟糕的车辆(或建筑物等)v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 );使(船舶)失事,使遇难,使下沉
参考例句:
  • The shores are strewn with wrecks. 海岸上满布失事船只的残骸。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • My next care was to get together the wrecks of my fortune. 第二件我所关心的事就是集聚破产后的余财。 来自辞典例句
6 vessel 4L1zi     
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管
参考例句:
  • The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
  • You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。
7 vessels fc9307c2593b522954eadb3ee6c57480     
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人
参考例句:
  • The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
8 buffalo 1Sby4     
n.(北美)野牛;(亚洲)水牛
参考例句:
  • Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
  • The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。
9 ancestry BNvzf     
n.祖先,家世
参考例句:
  • Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
  • He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。
10 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
11 wreckage nMhzF     
n.(失事飞机等的)残骸,破坏,毁坏
参考例句:
  • They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
  • New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。
12 remains 1kMzTy     
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹
参考例句:
  • He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
  • The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。
13 radar kTUxx     
n.雷达,无线电探测器
参考例句:
  • They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
  • Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。
14 treacherous eg7y5     
adj.不可靠的,有暗藏的危险的;adj.背叛的,背信弃义的
参考例句:
  • The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
  • The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。
15 detailed xuNzms     
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的
参考例句:
  • He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
  • A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。
16 maritime 62yyA     
adj.海的,海事的,航海的,近海的,沿海的
参考例句:
  • Many maritime people are fishermen.许多居于海滨的人是渔夫。
  • The temperature change in winter is less in maritime areas.冬季沿海的温差较小。
17 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

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