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1、Lesson 1 Finding fossil man (化石人)We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve (baocun) their history is to recount (叙述) it as sag
2、as (传奇) - legends handed down from one generation of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations (移民) of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists (人类学者) wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples
3、now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia (印尼) about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists (考古学家) have neither
4、history nor legends to help them to find out where the first modern men came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint (打火石), because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted (腐烂) away. Stone does not d
5、ecay (腐烂), and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.Lesson 2 Spare that spiderWhy, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of th
6、e human race. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour (吞吃) all our crops and kill our flocks and herds (牛羊), if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. We owe (欠) a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put toget
7、her kill only a fraction (小部分) of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the harm to us or our belongings (财产).Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance,
8、for a spider always has eight legs and insect never more than six.How many spiders are engaged (忙碌) in this work no our behalf? One authority on spiders made a census (人口普查) of the spiders in grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre; that
9、is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content (满足) with only three meals a day. It has
10、been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.Lesson 3 Matterhorn man Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport, and the more difficu
11、lt it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneering days, however, this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking for the easiest way to the top, because the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it and never been attained before. It is true that during their explora
12、tions they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner with would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement. They had a single aim, a solitary goal - the top! It is hard for us to realize now
13、adays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Except for one or two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine village tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the
14、 food simply local cheese accompanied by bread often twelve months old, all washed down with coarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at all, and climbers found shelter wherever they could - sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as poor as his parishioners), sometimes with shepherds or
15、cheese-makers. Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating seven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the Alps must have very hard indeed. Lesson 4 Seeing hands Several cases have been reported
16、 in Russia recently of people who can detect (察觉) colours with their fingers, and even see through solid and walls. One case concerns and eleven-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive (感觉) things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls. This ability was first noticed by her father. One day she came into his office and happened to put her hands
