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1、新概念英语 1-4 册 文本 中国英语学习网 - Book IV Lesson 1 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 world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas-l
2、egends handed down from one generation of story-tellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now li
3、ving in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia 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 have neither history nor legen
4、ds to help them to find out where the first modern men came from. Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of l
5、ong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.Book IV Lesson 2 Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make it impo
6、ssible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by sp
7、iders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings. Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legs and an insect never more
8、 than six. How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf ?新概念英语 1-4 册 文本 中国英语学习网 One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of dif
9、ferent 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 with only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insec
10、ts destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.Book IV Lesson 3 Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport, and the more difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pione
11、ering 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 had never been attained before. It is true that during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the
12、most perilous nature, equipped in a manner which 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 nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Except for
13、one or two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine villages tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheese accompanied by bread oft
14、en 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 cheese- makers. Invariably the background was the sa
15、me: 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 Alpsmust have been very hard indeed.Book IV Lesson 4新概念英语 1-4 册 文本 中国英语学习网 In the Soviet Union several cases have been reported recently o
16、f people who can read and detect colours with their fingers, and even see through solid doors and walls. One case concerns an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive 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
