泛读3Unit5翻译.doc

Its Tough at the Top Mount Everest has long been a great attraction to millions of people throughout the world. Many people have risked and lost their lives in the course of expedition. Modern explorers, however, are becoming more fascinated by the ultimate fate of earlier doomed explorers. Because its there, George Mallory reportedly replied when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. The only man to take part in all three of the British pioneering expeditions in the 1920s, Mallory was driven by a fascination to reach the summit of the mountain with which he had formed a strong personal bond with. Its an hell-like mountain, cold and treacherous, he once wrote in a letter home from Everest Base Camp. The risks of getting caught are too great; the margin of strength when men are at great heights is too small. Perhaps it is mere folly to go up again. But how can I be out of the hunt? In 1920 when Francis Younghusband, the President of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), first put forward the idea of supporting an expedition to Everest, the mountain was still a mystery. At 8 848 meters Everest was almost 1 500 meters higher than anyone had previously climbed. There was even doubt as to whether it was possible to breathe at such altitude. At the time no one had been within 65 kilometers of the mountain, which could only be approached through the unknown kingdoms of Nepal or Chinas Tibet. With the North and South Poles already discovered, Younghusband had his sights set on the third pole, setting up the joint RGS/Alpine Club, Mount Everest Committee. The accomplishment of such a feat will elevate the human spirit and will give man, especially us geographers, a feeling that we are acquiring a true mastery of our surroundings. This is the incalculable good which the ascent of Mount Everest will confer, he said. High Hopes George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had set out from Camp VI on 8 June 1924, attempting to become the first men to set foot on the summit. They never returned. Today, with more than 550 mountaineers from 20 countries having reached the summit, the mystery has shifted away from Everest the mountain, towards Mallory the man. In March 1999, 75 years after Mallorys death on the mountain, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition set out for Everest, not because it was there, but because he was. Leader of the 1999 expedition Eric Simonson and his team were hoping to discover whether or not the two men achieved their goal before they died. They had only a few clues to go on. In 1933 an ice axe, thought to be Irvines, had been found on the route, and in 1975, the body of a climber was discovered nearby by a Chinese climber who described it as being an old English dead on account of the vintage clothes the body still wore. However, the identity of the dead climber has never been confirmed. Simonsons team expected to relocate the body during their high level search. They anticipated it to be Irvine, the inexperienced Oxford graduate who had possibly fallen, dropping his ice axe on the icy slabs of Everests North Face. Mallorys fate was unknown. Searching amongst the snow gullies and scouring ledges at 8 320 meters, Simonsons team discovered a body, the skin bleached porcelain white by the sun. It was lying face down, head and arms frozen into the earth. Only the collars of the tattered clothes were intact and on one was uncovered a manufacturers label, still legible despite years of vicious assaults by ice and wind. Beneath this was another label, which they could all easily read. In simple carefully stitched letters was written: G Mallory. Mallorys name on the clothes so surprised the search party their first thought was to wonder why Irvine had been wearing his climbing partners shirt. The discovery of Mallorys body prompted admiration of expedition search member, Jake Norton. As a climber, to know what Mallory did was phenomenal. He was a powerful tough guy, who fought till the end, he told reporters. During the early decades of the twentieth century, it was this strength, tenacity and love of adventure which had established Mallory as a leading figure in the close-knit climbing world. He was an obvious choice for the Mount Everest Committee as part of the first reconnaissance expedition in 1921. For Mallory this was the opportunity of a lifetime. It was a challenge, but that only increased its appeal, for as he once said: To refuse the adventure is to run the risk of drying up like a pea in its shell. By 1924, after two exhausting and unsuccessful attempts to the mountain on expeditions in 1921 and 1922, his early enthusiasm began to wane. He was now 38 years old. A family man with three children, he had just begun a teaching job at Cambridge. Yet, he couldnt resist one final attempt to complete a task he had started. Meeting Irvine, recommended by Noel Odell, the expeditions geologist, buoyed him up for the challenge. Although Irvine was young with no track record as a climber, he was strong, resourceful and good-natured. The expedition superman, they called him. Mallory had warmed to him immediately, describing him as a fine fellow, who should, prove a splendid companion on the mountain. Before departing for the 1924 expedition Mallory had confided in a friend that it would be, more of war than an adventure, and that he was prepared for a siege on the summit. Two attempts were to be made, one with oxygen and one without but Everest repelled both attempts. Mallorys climbing teams were defeated through lack of oxygen and exhaustion. He refused to give up and was determined to risk one last try. Only Odell and Irvine were in a fit state to partner him. For Mallory it was a simple choice. He threw his lot in with Irvine and the pair set off on their fatal summit bid. The day after Mallory and Irvine departed for the summit, Odell saw them for the last time from a crag at 7 925 meters. A sudden clearing above him unveiled the whole summit ridge. On a snow slope, clinging to the steep North Face, he noticed, first Mallory, then Irvine approach a broad rock step. As he stood, his eyes tracking them against the mosaic of rock and snow, the weather closed in again, clouding their fate for the next 75 years. Frozen to the Core In finding Mallorys body, Simonsons team had helped to come to a theory of how he had died. Prior to the recent expedition it was thought that Mallory and Irvine had been climbing at 8 535 meters, and could have either fallen or simply laid down exhausted in the snow to die. But after seeing the body, Norton is sure they were climbing tied together when Mallory fell. There was a rope wrapped round his waist. You could see black and blues on him, he probably had internal bleeding. He slid down the North Face digging into the snow or gravel, crossed his legs in pain and died a few moments later. Other more significant questions remain. Despite the initial find of the body, Everest was reluctant to give away too many more clues. The team failed to find the camera, lent to Mallory by his climbing partner Howard Somervell, the existence of which may prove whether or not the pair made it to the top. However, searching for needles in a hostile, windscorched haystack of rock and ice is a perilous business. Between 8 230 meters and the summit, Simonsons team counted 17 other bodies, besides Mallorys. In the face of such danger the expeditions fascination with the man, must be almost as great as the mans own fascination with the mountain. Macabre though Simonsons quest is, it is not unique. In the autumn of 1984 the face of John Torrington appeared in national newspapers. What was unusual about this was that Torrington had been dead for 138 years, buried under 1.8 meters of Arctic permafrost. Torrington had been chief Stoker aboard the Erebus which along with the Terror sailed with Sir John Franklin during his expedition to chart the Northwest Passage. The expedition had set sail from the Thames River on 19 May 1845, carrying with it the hope of the nation for the discovery of a navigable route through the Arctic into the Pacific Ocean. Neither ship was ever seen again and 129 men lost their lives in a polar enigma which mesmerized Victorian Britain. The conclusion of the 25 major search expeditions, which set out to solve the puzzle was that Franklins men had succumbed to scurry, starvation, stress and hypothermia. In 1981 American anthropologist Owen Beattie, set out to apply modern scientific and forensic technique to any remaining evidence of Franklins expedition. Over the following five years Beattie scoured Franklins expedition sites for clues. His most grisly task was the exhumation and autopsies of three expedition members, one of whom was John Torrington. For men buried in the year that the Corn Laws were repealed, they were in a remarkable state of preservation. Being kept in the frozen earth since 1846 had prevented major outward appearances of decay. Torrington looked very much as he has done in life; skin was still on his face, he had kept his teeth, eyes and most of his hair. Samples of his body tissue looked almost recent in origin and certain bacterial stains collected had even survived the big freeze. The autopsy showed Torrington was an ill man when he died. His lungs were blackened with atmospheric pollutants and he showed evidence of tuberculosis. There were also signs that the ultimate cause of death had been pneumonia. However, what struck Beattie most were abnormally high levels of lead found in samples of hair, indicating acute lead poisoning. Lead poisoning can lead to weakness, fatigue, stupor, neurosis and erratic behavior, far from ideal conditions for surviving long exposure to the harsh Arctic environment. Beattie confirmed the elevated lead levels in John Hartnell and William Braine, the two other exhumed bodies. In 1845, tinned preserved food was a modern invention, tin cans having been only patented in England in 1811. They were made from a wrought-iron sheet bent into a cylinder and joined along the seam with solder containing more than 90 percent lead. Franklins expedition carried nearly 8 000 lead-soldered tins containing meat, soup, vegetables and pemmican a pressed cake of shredded dry meat. Beatties examination of tins collected near the site of the graves confirmed the high levels of lead in the solder and also that the side seams of some tins were incomplete, increasing the risk of contamination. Beatties gruesome raising of Franklins death had answered the age-old question of what happened to the ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition. Weakened by the physical and neurological side effects of lead poisoning, the men would have not been physically able to fight off the diseases that were the eventual cause of death. The Missing Link Simonsons expedition returned from Everest at the start of June 1999. He has similar hopes of answering the questions surrounding the last hours of Mallory and Irvine. Although Mallorys camera was not recovered, various other artifacts were unearthed, including an oxygen bottle, Mallorys watch, an altimeter, glacier goggles, a pocketknife and several letters from family members. An American documentary team, who traveled with the expedition, is already planning to run a series of forensic examination on the artifacts, similar to those of Beattie. They hope to piece together the many possible scenarios of Mallory and Irvines last day. Beatties solution to the Franklin mystery took four expeditions and Simonson is not expecting miracles. Already he is looking ahead to the next year and planning a second expedition. Next time he wants to look for Irvines body and the elusive camera, which he still believes is on the mountain. But for the present, the mystery of both the man and the mountain live on. (1973 words) TOP 课文一艰难登顶 珠穆朗玛峰对于全世界数百万人来说， 长期以来有着巨大的吸引力。在征服珠穆朗玛峰的过程中，许多人冒了巨大的危险，而且失去了生命。然而，现代探险者对早年遭到厄运的攀登者的最终命运，表现出越来越浓厚的兴趣。 据说,当乔治马罗礼被问及他为何要攀登珠峰时，他这样回答，“因为有珠峰”。 他是唯一参加二十世纪二十年代英国组织的 所有三次征服珠峰活动的探险家。他对珠峰怀有强烈的情感，一直神往登上山顶。“它是一座魔鬼般的大山，冷峻而且反复无常，”他在珠峰大本营给家人写信时有一次这样写道。“冒的险实在太大；人们攀登峰顶时可使的力量又是这么小。也许只是发疯了才再次攀登。可是我怎能摆脱这种诱惑呢?” 1920年皇家地理学会主席弗兰西斯扬哈斯本首次提出支持珠峰探险的想法时，人们对这座山 还一无所知。高达8848米的珠峰比当时人类攀登过的最高峰还高出1500米。人们甚至怀疑，在这样的高度有没有可能呼吸。那时，还没有人到过珠峰 周围65公里的范围，只能从人们不太熟悉的尼泊尔王国或中国的西藏走近这座高山。 随着人们发现了北极与南极，扬哈斯本把他的目光投向“第三极”，设立联合皇家地理学会/登山俱乐部下属的珠穆朗玛峰委员会。“这次壮举的完成将振奋人类精神，也让人类，尤其是我们地理学家感到，我们正在成为我们这个环境真正的主人。登上珠穆朗玛峰所产生的 效益是难以估量的，”扬哈斯本说道。 厚望 乔治马罗礼与安德鲁欧文于1924年6月8日从六号营地出发，试图成为首次登上珠峰的人。可他们再也没有回来。时至今日，已有20个国家五百五十多名登山运动员登顶成功。谜团也就从珠峰这座山转向马罗礼这个人了。1999年3月，在马罗礼罹难后的第75年，马罗里欧文研究探险队向珠峰进发，不是因为珠峰在那里，而是因为他在那里。1999年探险队长埃里克西门松及其队员希望发现这两人死之前是否成功登顶。 他们只有几条探寻的线索。1933年，在登山线路上找到被认为是欧文使用的一把冰斧。1975年，一名中国登山运动员在附近发现一具登山者的尸体，将其描述为“一位年长的英国死者”，因为尸体穿的是老式衣服。然而，这位死去的登山者的身份从未得到确认。西门松的探险队期望在高地再 次找到那具尸体。他们认为会是欧文，这位经验不足的牛津毕业生可能是从悬崖上坠落的，将冰斧掉在珠峰北坡的冰层上。马罗礼的下落则不清楚。 在8320米的雪沟与冰棱间搜寻时，西门松小组人员发现了一具尸体，太阳把他的皮肤 晒成瓷白色。尸体的脸部朝下，头与双臂与地面冻成一块。破碎不堪的衣服只有领子完好无损。其中一个领子上发现制造厂商的标签。虽经数十年的风霜冰雪严酷吹打，标签上的字仍清晰可辨。在这块标签下还有另一块标签，队员们很容易辨出上面的字。简单而细心缝制的字母为：G. Mallory。衣服上的马罗礼的名字令搜寻小组感到十分惊讶，他们的第一个反应就是猜测欧文为何穿着他登山伙伴的衬衫？发现了马罗礼尸体后，探险队员杰克诺顿对其产生了无比的敬意。“作为一名登山者，了解马罗礼所做的事情意义重大。他是一位意志极为坚强的人，战斗到最后一息，”诺顿跟记者这样说道。 二十世纪前几十年时间里，力量、坚韧不拔与富于冒险的精神使马罗礼在组织严密的登山界成为一名出类 拔萃的人。1921年他被珠穆朗玛峰委员会一眼相中，成为第一个珠峰探险队的成员。对于马罗礼来说，这是一生一次的机会。这次攀登珠峰是一次挑战，但挑战更提高了它的吸引力，因为正如马罗礼曾经说过的那样，“拒绝这次冒险机会等于让自已庸庸碌碌地渡过一生。” 到了1924年，经过1921年与1922年两次使人精疲力竭的失败尝试后，马罗礼早期的热情开始减退。他已38岁。作为有三个孩子的一家之主，他开始在剑桥大学执教。然而他无法抵挡作最后一试的诱惑，以完成他已开始的事业。他会见了探险队地质学家诺尔奥德尔推荐的欧文，这重新唤起他应对挑战的干劲。虽然欧文年轻，还没有登山记录，但他体魄强壮，主意又多，而且性格随和。在探险队里，队员们称他为“超人”。马罗礼马上给他鼓劲，称他为“好汉”，会是“登山中一个出色的伙伴。” 1924年的探险出发前，马罗礼私下跟一位朋友说，这次探险“与其说是一场冒险不如说是一场战争，”而他做好在山顶遭受灾难来袭的准备。他们打算做两种尝试：一种是带氧，另一种不带氧气。但是珠峰对这两种尝试均未买账。由于缺氧和体力衰竭，马罗礼的登山队失败，但他毫不气馁，决心冒险做最后一搏。只有奥德尔与欧文身体状况尚好，可以陪着他。对于马罗礼来说，选择很简单。于是他决心与欧文共命运，俩人踏上登顶的不归路。 马罗礼与欧文出发登顶的第二天，奥德尔最后一次看见他们是在海拔7925米的险崖处。他头顶上突然现出一片晴朗，整座山脊一览无余。紧靠着陡峭的北坡的雪坡上，他先看到马罗礼，然后看见欧文到了一块宽阔的岩石阶上。他站在那里，双眼紧紧盯住岩石与雪地交织地带的俩人，云气再次降临下来，将他们的命运一盖就是75年。 寒冻到了极致 西门松探险小组发现了马罗礼的尸体之后， 帮助得出了关于他死因的解释。在这次探险之前，人们认为马罗礼与欧文攀到8535米的地方时，他们要么翻下了山崖，要么是体力不支，躺倒在雪地上死去。但检验了尸体后，诺顿确信马罗礼坠落时，他们俩正在一块攀登。“一条绳子绕在他的腰间，身上青一块、紫一块的，他大概内出血。他在用冰镐往雪地或砾石上钉眼时从北坡滑落，双腿痛苦得蜷在一