The Lost Continent 遗失的大陆-10

When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1799, he took with him the largest collection of scholars ever to accompany a military campaign. The finds and discoveries made by Napoleon's archaeologists generated a national obsession¹ with all things ancient, in time inspiring a fellow Frenchman Jules Verne to take the story of Atlantis from the arcane² libraries of a few lonely scholars into the imagination of the whole world.

Here were the encrusted remains³ of an Acropolis, with the floating foams⁴ of a Parthenon. Here were the vestige⁵s of an ancient port on the shore of a vanished sea, which had once given shelter to merchant ships and craft of war. Palestine was outlines of crumpled⁷ walls and long-lines of wide deserted⁸ streets. An ancient Pompeii buried beneath the sea. Atlantis.

Jules Verne's image of Atlantis in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was perhaps the most spellbinding description of the lost city since Plato's.

It was published in 1870, enormously popular book, the drawings that actually accompanied the book showed people marching around in Greek, sunken Greek temples and this of course was kind of an interesting concept and probably was the element that got people more and more interested in Atlantis. The idea that under water, you could walk around in sunken Greek temples.

Written in the 1870s as the effects of the industrial revolution and new technologies were rapidly changing the world, Verne's story of under sea exploration was a prescient guess of the shape of things to come.

It was really a Da Vinci kind of prophecy. The general population of the day had no idea about the oceans really. Most people did not know how to swim; Most people certainly had never been underwater. All they knew was that the ocean was populated by monsters of one kind or another/ that probably ate ships and certainly ate people.

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arcane: adj. 神秘的
vestige: n. 遗迹
crumpled: adj. 皱的
spellbinding: adj. 引诱的，吸引的
prescient: adj 预见的，预知的
prophecy: n. 预言
populate: v. 使人居住

1 obsession   

n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感)

参考例句：

• I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
• She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。

2 arcane   

adj.神秘的，秘密的

参考例句：

• The technique at one time was arcane in the minds of most chemists.这种技术在大多数化学家心目中一度是神秘的。
• Until a few months ago few people outside the arcane world of contemporary music had heard of Gorecki.直至几个月前，在现代音乐神秘殿堂之外很少有人听说了戈莱斯基。

3 remains   

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。

4 foams   

n.泡沫，泡沫材料( foam的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sea water foams under the bow. 海水在船首下面泛起浪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The meter handles gases, liquids, foams, and slurries. 这流量计可以处理气体，液体，泡沫状物和稀浆等。 来自辞典例句

5 vestige   

n.痕迹，遗迹，残余

参考例句：

• Some upright stones in wild places are the vestige of ancient religions.荒原上一些直立的石块是古老宗教的遗迹。
• Every vestige has been swept away.一切痕迹都被一扫而光。

6 vestiges   

残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不

参考例句：

• the last vestiges of the old colonial regime 旧殖民制度最后的残余
• These upright stones are the vestiges of some ancient religion. 这些竖立的石头是某种古代宗教的遗迹。

7 crumpled   

adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• She crumpled the letter up into a ball and threw it on the fire. 她把那封信揉成一团扔进了火里。
• She flattened out the crumpled letter on the desk. 她在写字台上把皱巴巴的信展平。

8 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。