第14章　仙境

《愛麗絲夢游仙境》只是一個童話故事，可在美國的大西部，卻有一個真真實實的“仙境”。其中的奇跡之一，便是一條河。這條河叫作科羅拉多河，可它并不位于科羅拉多州境內，而是位于亞利桑那州境內。

這條河，流淌在世界上最深的一條溝里，在有些地方，這條溝甚至深達一英里呢。西班牙人將這條溝稱為“大峽谷”。你們可以站在科羅拉多大峽谷一側，俯瞰差不多一英里之下：科羅拉多河就像是一道細線，在谷底流淌而過，可正是這條小河，憑一己之力，切入、侵蝕了它所流經的這道峽谷。就算在別處也可以向下挖掘一英里深，但我們在此還是可以比在全世界其他任何地方更好地看到地球內部的模樣，因為在這里，一條小河已經替我們向下挖掘了一英里。我曾經問過導游，到大峽谷那一邊有多遠。

“哦，”他回答道，“大概喊上十聲或者十二聲那樣遠吧。”對我來說，這可是一種新的距離，因為我連喊一聲有多遠都不知道呢。我的數學知識規定，十二英寸是一英尺，三英尺則合一碼，可沒有說過多少英尺合一“喊”呢。你們可以眺望大峽谷的那一邊，看到對面的谷壁高達差不多一英里，那道谷壁，并不是一堵像是建筑物里的那種普通而單調的墻壁，而更像是天堂里的一堵墻壁，它是由巖石一層layer has been dyed a different color by minerals like iron and copper；if there was iron in the water, it turned the rock the color of iron rust—red；if copper, it turned the rock green.

I once bought a souvenir pencil. In its end was a pinhole, and when you squinted into the hole with one eye, there you saw in all its vastness the Colorado Canyon.It seemed impossible, and yet there it was, stretching off in the distance, mile upon mile, in a picture the size of a pin head！

Some of the branches of the Colorado run in smaller canyons, and high up on the walls of these canyons are houses built in caves in the rock. Once upon a time, long, long ago, people whom we call“cliff-dwellers”built these homes j there to be safe from their enemies.

A giant hop and skip north from the Grand Canyon would bring one to the State of Utah, where there is a great lake, but this Great Lake is different from the five“Great Lakes.”The water in the five Great Lakes is fresh, the water in this great lake is salt, so it is called Great Salt Lake, though it is really a little ocean. As in the case of the ocean, rivers run into the Great Salt Lake, but no rivers run out of it.

What makes it salt?The same thing

層堆疊起來的，顏色豐富，有黃色、紅色、綠色、橙色、紫色，與陽光和陰影混合駁雜，顯得五彩斑斕。這些巖層曾經都位于海底，因為它們都是石灰巖或者砂巖。每種巖層都因為含有像鐵或銅這樣的礦物質而呈現出不同的色彩：如果水中含鐵，那么它就會把巖石變成鐵銹的顏色，即紅色；如果水中含的是銅，那它就會讓巖石呈現出綠色來。

我曾經買過一支用來做紀念品的鉛筆。鉛筆一端有個小孔，如果瞇起一只眼睛，向小孔里望去，就會看到科羅拉多大峽谷那種廣袤無垠的景象。這似乎是不可能的，可事實就是如此，在一幅針尖般大小的圖畫上，科羅拉多大峽谷竟然一英里一英里地向遠處延伸著！

科羅拉多河有的支流是在其他一些較小的峽谷里流淌著，而在那些峽谷高高的谷壁上，還有一些房屋，修建在巖石上的洞穴里。那些房屋，都是很久、很久以前我們所謂的“懸崖洞人”修建的，目的是為了讓他們不致遭到敵人的侵擾。

從大峽谷往北，經過一個巨大的“三級跳”，我們就會來到猶他州。那里有一個巨大的湖泊，可這個“大湖”，卻與那五個“大湖”不一樣。五大湖區的湖水都是淡水，可這個大湖里的湖水卻是咸水，因此這個大湖便被稱作“大鹽湖”，不過，它其實就是一個小小的海洋。因為與海洋的情況一樣，大鹽湖有河流注入，卻

that makes the ocean salt.

What makes the ocean salt?

The ground through which rivers flow is salt. If you ever tasted the ground, you would know it, but, of course, I don't suppose you ever have, unless you have fallen and gotten some in your mouth or on your lips.Rivers, as they flow along, wash some of this salt out of the ground, carry it along, and dump it into the ocean.They carry so little salt at a time you would never know by tasting the river water that it was salt at all, but the rivers pour in this ever so little bit of salt all the time, all

the time, and so the salt gradually does collect in the ocean and in Great Salt Lake, for there is no way for the salt to go out once it's in the ocean or the lake. The water gets out of the lake as it does out of the ocean—by rising into the air as vapor—evaporating, we call it—but the salt doesn't evaporate, it can't rise into the air, and so it has no way of getting out.

The Great Salt Lake is getting saltier and saltier all the time. It is already much saltier than the ocean.Salt water holds up a person or anything in it much better than fresh water, and the saltier the water the more it holds the person up.So in Great Salt Lake you couldn't drown whether you knew how to swim

沒有河流排出。

是什么原因，使得這個湖中的水是咸水呢？

這與使得海水成為咸水的原因是一樣的。

是什么原因，使得海水是咸的呢？

這是因為，河流流經的土壤是咸的。如果以前嘗過泥土的味道，那大家就會明白這一點，但是，除非你們摔倒過，把泥土弄到了嘴里或者粘到了嘴唇上，否則我當然認為你們沒有嘗過。在一路流淌的過程中，河流會將土壤里的這種鹽分溶解，然后一路攜帶著，最終匯入海洋之中。它們一次只會帶走一點點兒鹽分，因此你們完全不可能通過嘗一嘗河水，就感覺出河水的咸味來，不過，由于河流始終都在將這一點點的鹽分不斷地注入海洋當中，所以海洋和大鹽湖里的鹽分便開始逐漸地越積越多了：因為一旦注入海洋或者湖中，這種鹽分就沒有辦法再流失出去。湖水逸出的方式，與海水是一樣的，那就是變成水蒸氣，升到空中（我們稱這一過程為蒸發），可鹽分卻不會蒸發掉，不能升到空中，因而無法流失出去。

大鹽湖一直都在變得越來越咸、越來越咸，使得那里的湖水如今比海水都要咸得多了。咸水浮起其中的人或者別的東西的本領，要比淡水大得多，而且，水越咸，它浮起水中之人的力量也越大。因此，在大鹽湖里，無論會不會游泳，大家都是不會溺水的。你們既可以在水中站著，也可以坐在水里，還可以像躺在沙發上那

or not. You can stand in the water or sit in the water or lie down on the water as you would on a sofa.You can read the paper or eat your luncheon while sitting in the water, but you have to be very careful not to get any of the water in your eyes or in any small cut you may have on your hands or body, for the salt water is so strong it smarts.Some day the ocean will be as salty as Great Salt Lake, for the ocean too is slowly, very slowly, getting saltier and saltier all the time.Then, even if there were a shipwreck, people would not drown—they would bob about in the sea like corks.

Still farther north, a hop, skip, and a jump from the Colorado Canyon, in the corner of the State of Wyoming, is a place that looks on the map like a little State within the State. It is called Yellowstone Park.There are so many wonderful things in this part of the State—freaks, funny things, and lovely things—that the United States thought people would like to see them, so they made a Park of this corner of the State, with good roads and hotels, for people who wish to see the sights.No hunting is allowed, so wild animals and birds can live and raise families without fear of being killed.There are bears in Yellowstone Park, but as they are not allowed to be hunted or shot, they become very tame and people can even go close enough to photograph them.

The World in that part of the country has not yet cooled off altogether, and it is still very hot not far down under the ground. If a person asked me to have a glass of spring water, I should expect a nice cool drink；but if the spring were in Yellowstone Park the water would probably scald my throat, for there are hundreds of springs in Yellowstone Park heated so hot by underground fires that they boil up and over like a pot on the fire.

樣，躺在水面上呢。你們可以坐在水里看報紙或者吃午餐，不過，大家得非常小心才行，不能讓湖水進入眼睛里面，不能讓湖水浸到自己手上或者身上可能有的任何小傷口里，因為咸水太厲害，會刺得眼睛和傷口生疼生疼。有朝一日，海水也會變得像大鹽湖里的湖水那樣咸，因為海洋也一直都在慢慢、慢慢地變得越來越咸、越來越咸。到了那時，就算船只在海上失事，乘客也不會溺死了，因為他們會像軟木塞一樣，浮在海里呀。

再往北去，從科羅拉多大峽谷再來一個三級跳，就到了懷俄明州的一個角上，那里有個地方，在地圖上看起來，就像是懷俄明州里面又有一個小州似的。這個地方，叫作黃石公園。懷俄明州的這個地區，有許多、許多的奇妙之處，有奇怪、有趣而可愛的東西，美國覺得人們可能都會想來看一看這些東西，因此便將懷俄明州的這個角落變成了一個公園，并且修建了一條條大路和一座座好旅館，供那些希望去觀賞美景的人用。那里禁止打獵，因此野生動物和鳥兒可以生活在那里，可以繁衍后代，而不用害怕遭到人們獵殺。黃石公園里有熊，但由于禁止獵殺，因此它們都變得非常溫馴了，游客甚至還可以走近它們去拍照。

地球在美國這一地區的部分，還沒有徹底冷卻下來，因此在地面以下不遠的地方，溫度仍然非常高。要是有人請我喝上一杯井水的話，那么我心里肯定會想，這杯井水一定是涼絲絲的，不過，要是那口井位于黃石公園的話，井水十有八九就會燙傷我的喉嚨，因為黃石公園里有成百上千眼井都被地熱燒得滾燙，還會像爐子上

There is a big lake in Yellowstone Park called Yellowstone Lake. You can stand on its edge and catch a fish in the lake and, without taking the fish off the hook, drop it into one of the hot springs near shore and cook it.In other places the water is blown up by the steam underneath into fountains.These fountains are called“geysers，”and some are quite big and some are quite beautiful.One called“Old Faithful”spouts regularly about once every hour, throwing a beautiful stream of water straight up into the air like a gigantic fire-hose.It does this so faithfully that it seems almost as if a person turned the water on and off, but it has been spouting this way ever since it has been known—never missing an hour, night or day, never forgetting, never running down, more faithful than any human being would or could be.

的水壺那樣沸騰起來呢。

黃石公園里有一個大湖，叫作黃石湖。你們可以站在岸邊，釣起湖中的一條魚，然后都不用把魚從魚鉤上取下來，只需直接扔進湖邊的溫泉中煮熟，就可以吃了。在其他一些地方，井水還會被地下形成的蒸汽沖向空中，形成一座座噴泉。這種噴泉，就叫“間歇泉”，有些間歇泉的規模相當巨大，有些間歇泉則非常漂亮。其中有一座間歇泉，叫作“老忠實”，差不多每個小時都會噴發一次，并且每次都是徑直向空中噴出一道美麗的水霧，宛如一條巨大的消防水龍。這座間歇泉始終這樣有規律地噴發著，簡直就像是有一個人在那里將井水開了關、關了開似的，自從人們發現這眼噴泉之后，它就一直都在這樣噴發，從未間斷過一個小時、一個晝夜，從不遺忘、從不衰竭，比任何人都要更加忠實呢。