海底兩萬里 第186期 第13章 一些數(shù)字(9)

　　THE PART OF THE planet earth that the seas occupy has been assessed at 3,832,558 square myriameters, hence more than 38,000,000,000 hectares. This liquid mass totals 2,250,000,000 cubic miles and could form a sphere with a diameter of sixty leagues, whose weight would be three quintillion metric tons. To appreciate such a number, we should remember that a quintillion is to a billion what a billion is to one, in other words, there are as many billions in a quintillion as ones in a billion! Now then, this liquid mass nearly equals the total amount of water that has poured through all the earth's rivers for the past 40,000 years!

　　地球上海水占的面積共計為三百八十三億二千五百五十八萬平方公里。海水的體積共有二十二億五千萬立方米，它可以成為一個圓球，這圓球的直徑為六十里，重量為三百億億噸。想了解上面這個數(shù)目，必須設想這個數(shù)目對十億之比，同于十億對單位之比，即是說，在這個數(shù)目中所有的十億數(shù)，等于十億中所有的單位數(shù)。而這個數(shù)目的海水也就等于地上所有的河流在四萬年中所流下來的水量。

　　During prehistoric times, an era of fire was followed by an era of water. At first there was ocean everywhere. Then, during the Silurian period, the tops of mountains gradually appeared above the waves, islands emerged, disappeared beneath temporary floods, rose again, were fused to form continents, and finally the earth's geography settled into what we have today. Solid matter had wrested from liquid matter some 37,657,000 square miles, hence 12,916,000,000 hectares.

　　在地質學的紀元中，火的時期之后為水的時期。首先，處處都是海洋。“然后，在初期志留紀中，山峰漸漸露出來了，島嶼浮現(xiàn)，又在部分發(fā)生的洪水下隱沒，重又現(xiàn)出，連接起來，構成大陸，最后，陸地才固定為地理上的各大陸，跟我們今天所看見的一般。固體大陸從流體海水所取得的面積為三千七百萬零六百五十七平方英里，即一千二百九十一萬六千公畝。

　　The outlines of the continents allow the seas to be divided into five major parts: the frozen Arctic and Antarctic oceans, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean.

　　地球上各大陸形狀不同，把海水分為五大部分，即，北冰洋，南冰洋，印度洋;大西洋和太平洋.

　　The Pacific Ocean extends north to south between the two polar circles and east to west between America and Asia over an expanse of 145 degrees of longitude. It's the mosttranquil of the seas; its currents are wide and slow-moving, its tides moderate, its rainfall abundant. And this was the ocean that I was first destined to cross under these strangest ofauspices.

　　太平洋從北至南，是在南北兩極之間，從西至東，是在亞洲和美洲之間，共有經(jīng)度145度的寬廣。 太平洋是最平靜的海，海潮闊大緩慢，潮水中常，雨量豐富。我的命運要我在最奇異的情況下首先走過的，就是這個海洋。