新编英语教程第三册Unit03

Unit 3

TEXT I

Three Sundays in a Week

Text

Robert, the narrator of the story, was left in the care of his Uncle Rumgudgeon when his parents died. He grew up with Kate, daughter of Uncle Rumgudgeon. Kate had agreed to marry Robert any time he got her father's consent. But the old man would not give his consent until three Sundays came together in a week. Robert was greatly upset.

Now it so happened that among Kate's sailor friends were two men who had just traveled around the globe. They had circled it in a year and come back to England. With their help, Kate and I tried to gain our point indirectly¹. So we invited the pair up to meet my uncle, and after a half hour or so of idle talk, we began to steer² the conversation.
"Well, well, Mr. Rumgudgeon," Captain Pratt started. "Here I am just a year after leaving England — let me see. October 10 — yes, just a year since I called here, you will remember, to bid my friends goodbye. By the way — it does seem a coincidence, really, doesn't it? Captain Smitherton here has also been absent a year exactly — just a year today!"
"Why yes, yes, yes," replied my uncle. "Very queer indeed. Both of you gone just a year — very queer indeed. Now, that's what Dr. Double L. Dee would call an extraordinary concurrence³ of events. Extraordinary! Doctor Doub —"
"To be sure, papa, it is something strange," Kate interrupted hastily. "But remember that Captain Pratt didn't go by the same route as Captain Smitherton — that makes a difference, you know."
"Well," broke in my uncle. "I don't know any such thing! How should I? It only makes the thing even more extraordinary."
"Why papa, Captain Pratt went around Cape⁴ Horn, and Captain Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope."
"Precisely⁵ — the one went east and the other went west, you fool! And they both have gone completely around the world. Now, Dr. Double L. Dee —"
"Captain Pratt, you must come and spend the evening with us tomorrow," I said, "— you and Captain Smitherton. You can tell us all about your voyages, and we'll have a game of cards —."
"Cards? My dear fellow, you forget!" cried Captain Pratt. "Tomorrow will be Sunday, you know. Some other evening!"
"Sunday?" Kate demanded. "Come, you know Robert's not so bad as that! Today is Sunday, of course!"
"To be sure! To be sure!" my uncle added.
"I must beg both your pardons," Pratt insisted, "but I can't be so much mistaken. I know tomorrow's Sunday, because —"
Here Smitherton found his voice at last. He'd been looking at the others as though they were mad. "What are you people thinking about, anyhow? Wasn't yesterday Sunday, I should like to know?"
Everyone had an answer for that, but they were different answers. "Today's Sunday!" my uncle roared, purple with anger. "No! No! Tomorrow's Sunday," called Pratt.
"Why, you are all mad, every one of you! I am as positive that yesterday was Sunday as I am that I'm sitting in this chair."
And here Kate ended the quarrel by jumping up, as if she had a new thought. "I see it all! I see it all! It's a judgment⁶ on you, papa, about you know what! It's a very simple thing, really. I can explain it in a minute. Here's Captain Smitherton — he says yesterday was Sunday. And so it was. He's right. Bobby and Uncle and I say today is Sunday. And we're right. We're perfectly⁷ right. And Captain Pratt is right too, when he says tomorrow is Sunday. — We're all right, because, three Sundays have come together in this week!"
"Why, of course! said Smitherton after a bit of mock thought. "What fools we two are!"
"The earth you know, is about 24,000 miles around. And it spins around from west to east in 24 hours. Now if I sail along eastward⁸ a thousand miles from this position, I reach London with an hour extra, because I've been traveling right towards the rising sun and meeting it as it rose. In that way, I gain an hour on the clock. I see the sun rise just an hour before you do. And in another thousand miles eastward, I gain another hour in the same way — by meeting the sun before it rises. Thus when I go eastward around the globe, 24,000 miles or so, and reach this spot again, why, I've gone toward the rising sun just 24 hours. That is to say, when I arrive, it is a full day ahead of your time. Understand?"
"But Dr. Double L. Dee —" my uncle began feebly. Smitherton would not be interrupted.
"But Captain Pratt, on the contrary, traveled westward⁹. Every thousand miles took him an hour away from the rising sun. Each thousand miles in that direction brought him to a point an hour further from the sun. It takes just an hour for the sun to catch up with him there. So we can say that he has lost an hour. When he has sailed 24,000 miles west, why, he has lost just 24 hours. He has arrived a day after our time."
"Now, in that way, yesterday was really Sunday for me, because I gained a day. With you, Mr. Rumgudgeon, who remained here, today is Sunday. Captain Pratt, however, lost a day. Tomorrow will be his Sunday."
"And what is even more interesting, Mr. Rumgudgeon, there can be no particular reason given why the day of any one of us should be more correct than another. We are all perfectly correct in our claims about this Sunday."
Uncle Rumgudgeon kept his word, and Robert would have Kate, her inheritance and all.
By Edgar Allan Poe (abridged and adapted)

TEXT II

The Bermuda Triangle

There is a section of the Western Atlantic, off the southeast coast of the United States, forming what has been termed a triangle, extending from Bermuda in the north to southern Florida, and then east to a point through the Bahamas past Puerto Rico to about 40°west longitude¹⁰ and then back again to Bermuda. This area occupies a disturbing and almost unbelievable place in the world's catalogue of unexplained mysteries. This is usually referred to as the Bermuda Triangle, where more than a hundred planes and ships have literally¹¹ vanished into thin air, most of them since 1945, and more than a thousand lives have been lost in the past thirty-three years, without a single body or even a piece of wreckage¹² from the vanishing planes or ships having been found. Disappearance¹³ continue to occur with apparently¹⁴ increasing frequency, in spite of the fact that the seaways and airways¹⁵ are today more travelled, searches are more thorough, and records are more carefully kept.
Many of the planes concerned have vanished while in normal radio contact with their base or terminal destination until the very moment of their disappearance, while others have radioed the most extraordinary messages, implying that they could not get their instruments to function, that their compasses were spinning, that the sky had turned yellow and hazy¹⁶ (on a clear day), and the ocean (which was calm nearby) "didn't look right" without further clarification of what was wrong.
One group of five planes, a flight of Navy TBM Avengers, on a mission from the Fort Lauderdale Naval¹⁷ Air Station, on December 5, 1945, were the object, along with the Martin Mariner¹⁹ sent to rescue them, and which also disappeared, of one of the most intensive groundsea rescue operations ever conducted, although no life rafts, oil slicks, or wreckage was ever located. Other aircraft including passenger planes, have vanished while receiving landing instructions, almost as if, as has been mentioned in Naval Board of Inquiry²⁰ procedures, they had flown through a hole in the sky. Large and small boats have disappeared without leaving wreckage, as if they and their crews had been snatched into another dimension. Large ships, such as the Marine¹⁸ Sulphur Queen, a 425-foot-long freighter, and the U.S.S. Cyclops, 19,000 tons with 309 people aboard, have simply vanished while other ships and boats have been found drifting within the Triangle, sometimes with an animal survivor²¹, such as a dog or canary, who could give no indication of what had happened — although in one case a talking parrot vanished along with the crew.
Unexplained disappearances²² in the Bermuda Triangle have continued to the present day and no plane or ship is reported overdue²³ and finally classed as "search discontinued" by the Seventh Coast Guard without the expressed or unexpressed comment or feeling among the public or the searchers that there is some connection with the past and present phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle. There seems to be growing public awareness²⁴ that something is very wrong with this area. Recent numerous reports from planes and boats which have had incredible experiences within the Triangle and survived are contributing toward a new folklore²⁵ of the sea, although the cause of the unexplained menace to planes and ships within this area is as mysterious as ever.
From The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz

1 indirectly   

adv.间接地，不直接了当地

参考例句：

• I heard the news indirectly.这消息我是间接听来的。
• They were approached indirectly through an intermediary.通过一位中间人，他们进行了间接接触。

2 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

3 concurrence   

n.同意；并发

参考例句：

• There is a concurrence of opinion between them.他们的想法一致。
• The concurrence of their disappearances had to be more than coincidental.他们同时失踪肯定不仅仅是巧合。

4 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

5 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

6 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

7 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

8 eastward   

adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部

参考例句：

• The river here tends eastward.这条河从这里向东流。
• The crowd is heading eastward,believing that they can find gold there.人群正在向东移去，他们认为在那里可以找到黄金。

9 westward   

n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西

参考例句：

• We live on the westward slope of the hill.我们住在这座山的西山坡。
• Explore westward or wherever.向西或到什么别的地方去勘探。

10 longitude   

n.经线，经度

参考例句：

• The city is at longitude 21°east.这个城市位于东经21度。
• He noted the latitude and longitude,then made a mark on the admiralty chart.他记下纬度和经度，然后在航海图上做了个标记。

11 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

12 wreckage   

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。

13 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

14 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

15 AIRWAYS   

航空公司

参考例句：

• The giant jets that increasingly dominate the world's airways. 越来越称雄于世界航线的巨型喷气机。
• At one point the company bought from Nippon Airways a 727 jet. 有一次公司从日本航空公司买了一架727型喷气机。

16 hazy   

adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的

参考例句：

• We couldn't see far because it was so hazy.雾气蒙蒙妨碍了我们的视线。
• I have a hazy memory of those early years.对那些早先的岁月我有着朦胧的记忆。

17 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

18 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

19 mariner   

n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者

参考例句：

• A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.平静的大海决不能造就熟练的水手。
• A mariner must have his eye upon rocks and sands as well as upon the North Star.海员不仅要盯着北极星，还要注意暗礁和险滩。

20 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

21 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

22 disappearances   

n.消失( disappearance的名词复数 )；丢失；失踪；失踪案

参考例句：

• Most disappearances are the result of the terrorist activity. 大多数的失踪案都是恐怖分子造成的。 来自辞典例句
• The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. 间谍活动、叛党卖国、逮捕拷打、处决灭迹，这种事情永远不会完。 来自英汉文学

23 overdue   

adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的

参考例句：

• The plane is overdue and has been delayed by the bad weather.飞机晚点了，被坏天气耽搁了。
• The landlady is angry because the rent is overdue.女房东生气了，因为房租过期未付。

24 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

25 folklore   

n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• In Chinese folklore the bat is an emblem of good fortune.在中国的民间传说中蝙蝠是好运的象征。