评论
打印
Chapter 103 Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton
第一百零三章 鲸骷髅的尺寸
In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here.
首先，我想把这种大鲸的活躯体给你特别清晰地说明一番，至于它的骷髅，我们就简略地提一提。这样一种说明，也许在这里是有用处的。
According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one thousand one hundred inhabitants.
根据我所做的仔细计算，而且这种计算大半还是以斯哥斯比船长的估计为依据的：最大的格陵兰鲸体重七十吨，身长六十英尺；我说，根据我的仔细的计算，最大的一只抹香鲸，身长大约在八十五到九十英尺间，身圆最大的地方大约四十英尺左右，象这样一只鲸，它的重量至少有九十吨；因此，以十三个人合一吨计算，它的体重就要大大地超过一个有一千一百个居民的村子整个人口的总体重。
Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman's imagination?
那么，难道你不认为，在任何陆地人的想象中，这只大海兽定然长着一只象上了轭的牲口那样的脑袋，使它动弹不得么？
Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his unobstructed bones.
关于它的脑壳，喷水口，嘴巴，牙齿，尾巴，前额，鳍，和其它各个部分，我已经用各种方法告诉过你了。现在我只想指出，在它那以优雅的骨胳所构成的整个身躯中，最有趣的是哪一方面。
