The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion, and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a whale, it surpassed in size all those hitherto classified in science. Taking into consideration the mean of observations made at divers times-- rejecting the timid estimate of those who assigned to this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in length--we might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all dimensions admitted by the learned ones of the day, if it existed at all. And that it DID exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that tendency which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we can understand the excitement produced in the entire world by this supernatural apparition. As to classing it in the list of fables, the idea was out of the question.
不知道中文译者按照哪个版本翻译的……好象不是英译版……作者: mu 时间: 2006-2-9 13:01
找到拉塞拜德了……
(1810-1892), French naturalist, was born at Berthezne, near Vallerangue (Gard), on the Ioth of February 1810, the son of a Protestant farmer. He studi~~ medicine at Strassburg, where he took the double degree of M~D. and D.Sc., one of his theses being a T/iorie dun coup de canon (November 1829); next year he published a book, Sur les arolithes, and in 1832 a treatise on LExtraversion de la vessie. Removing to Toulouse, he practised medicine for a short time, and contributed various memoirs to the local Journal de mfdecine and to the Annales des sciences naturelles (183436). But being unable to continue his researches in the provinces, he resigned the chair of zoology to which he had been appointed, and in 1839 settled in Paris, where he found in H. Mime-Edwards a patron and a friend. Elected professor of natural history at the Lyce Napoleon in 1850, he became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1852, and in 1855 was called to the chair of anthropology and ethnography at the Muse dhistoire naturelle. Other distinctions followed rapidly, and continued to the end of his otherwise uneventful career, the more important being honorary member of the Royal Society of London (June 1879), member of the Institute and of the Acadmie de mdecine, and commander of the Legion of Honor (1881). He died in Paris on the 12th of January 1892. He was an accurate observer and unwearied collector of zoological materials, gifted with remarkable descriuiive power, and possessed of a clear, vigorous style, but tnewhat deficient in deep philosophic insight. Hence his serious studies on the anatomical characters of the lower and higher organisms, man included, will retain their value, while many of his theories and generalizations, especially in the department of ethnology, are already forgotten.
The work of de Quatrefages ranged over the whole field of zoology from the annelids and other low organisms to the anthropoids and man. Of his numerous essays in scientific periodicals, the more important were: Considerations sur les caractres zoologiques de~ rongeurs (1840); Dc lorganisation des animaux sans vertebrei des Ctes de Ia Manche (Ann. Sc. Nat., 1844); Recherchessui le systme nerveux, lembryognie, les organs des sens, et Ia circulation des annlides (Ibid., 184450); Sur les affinits et les analogies des lombrics et des sangsues (Ibid.); Sur lhistoire naturelle des tarets (Ibid., 184849). Then there is the vast series issued under the general title of Etudes sur les types infrieurs de lembranchement des annels, and the results of several scientific expeditions to the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlands, Italy and Sicily, forming a series of articles in the Revue des deux mondes, or embodied in the Souvenirs dun naturaliste (2 vols., 1854). These were followed in quick succession by the Physiologic corn pare, snetamorphoses de lhomme et des animaux (1862); Les Pot ynsiens et leurs migrations (1866); Histoire naturelle des annels marins et de leau douce (2 vols., 1866); La Rochelle et ses environs (1866); Rapport sur les progrs de lanthropologie (1867); C/i. Darwin et ses pricurseurs francais (1870), a study of evolution in which the writer takes somewhat the same attitude as A. R. Wallace, combating the Dar*inian doctrine in its application to man; La Race prussienne (1871); Crania Ethnica, jointly with Dr Hamy (2 vols., with 100 plates, I 87582), a classical work based on French and foreign anthropological data, analogous to the Crania of Thurnam and Davis, and to S. G. Mortons Crania Americana and Crania Aegyptiaca; LEspce hurnafne (1877); Nouvelles Etudes sur la distribution geographique des ngritos (1882); Hornrnes fossiles et hommes sauvages (1884); and Histoire gnrale des races humaines (2 vols., 188689), the first volume being introductory, while the second attempts a complete classification of mankind.作者: 鹦鹉螺号 时间: 2006-2-9 13:21 标题: 原来是这个版本! The year 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians in the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at their heels the various national governments on these two continents, were all extremely disturbed by the business.
In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered "an enormous thing" at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any whale.
The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks, agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it seemed to be gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale previously classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor Lacépède, neither Professor Dumeril nor Professor de Quatrefages, would have accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen -- specifically, unseen by their own scientific eyes.
Striking an average of observations taken at different times -- rejecting those timid estimates that gave the object a length of 200 feet, and ignoring those exaggerated views that saw it as a mile wide and three long--you could still assert that this phenomenal creature greatly exceeded the dimensions of anything then known to ichthyologists, if it existed at all.
Now then, it did exist, this was an undeniable fact; and since the human mind dotes on objects of wonder, you can understand the worldwide excitement caused by this unearthly apparition. As for relegating it to the realm of fiction, that charge had to be dropped.
In essence, on July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, from the Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Co., encountered this moving mass five miles off the eastern shores of Australia. Captain Baker at first thought he was in the presence of an unknown reef; he was even about to fix its exact position when two waterspouts shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air some 150 feet. So, unless this reef was subject to the intermittent eruptions of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest dealings with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with air and steam.
Similar events were likewise observed in Pacific seas, on July 23 of the same year, by the Christopher Columbus from the West India & Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary cetacean could transfer itself from one locality to another with startling swiftness, since within an interval of just three days, the Governor Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had observed it at two positions on the charts separated by a distance of more than 700 nautical leagues.
Fifteen days later and 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia from the Compagnie Nationale and the Shannon from the Royal Mail line, running on opposite tacks in that part of the Atlantic lying between the United States and Europe, respectively signaled each other that the monster had been sighted in latitude 42 degrees 15' north and longitude 60 degrees 35' west of the meridian of Greenwich. From their simultaneous observations, they were able to estimate the mammal's minimum length at more than 350 English feet; this was because both the Shannon and the Helvetia were of smaller dimensions, although each measured 100 meters stem to stern. Now then, the biggest whales, those rorqual whales that frequent the waterways of the Aleutian Islands, have never exceeded a length of 56 meters--if they reach even that.
One after another, reports arrived that would profoundly affect public opinion: new observations taken by the transatlantic liner Pereire, the Inman line's Etna running afoul of the monster, an official report drawn up by officers on the French frigate Normandy, dead-earnest reckonings obtained by the general staff of Commodore Fitz-James aboard the Lord Clyde. In lighthearted countries, people joked about this phenomenon, but such serious, practical countries as England, America, and Germany were deeply concerned.
In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang about it in the coffee houses, they ridiculed it in the newspapers, they dramatized it in the theaters. The tabloids found it a fine opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes. In those newspapers short of copy, you saw the reappearance of every gigantic imaginary creature, from "Moby Dick," that dreadful white whale from the High Arctic regions, to the stupendous kraken whose tentacles could entwine a 500-ton craft and drag it into the ocean depths. They even reprinted reports from ancient times: the views of Aristotle and Pliny accepting the existence of such monsters, then the Norwegian stories of Bishop Pontoppidan, the narratives of Paul Egede, and finally the reports of Captain Harrington -- whose good faith is above suspicion--in which he claims he saw, while aboard the Castilian in 1857, one of those enormous serpents that, until then, had frequented only the seas of France's old extremist newspaper, The Constitutionalist.