At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between.
在那椏杈或者分支的地方,這兩片裂尾稍微有點(diǎn)疊起,接著又斜斜的、象兩張翅膀彼此分開來,中間隔開得很闊。
In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes.
在一般生物中,決沒有比這種仿如蛾眉月的裂片更具雅致鮮明的曲線美。
At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across.
一只茁壯的鯨,在它尾巴充分?jǐn)U張的時候,橫里總在二十英尺以上。
The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews;
整個尾巴的構(gòu)造似乎是密結(jié)著肌肉的網(wǎng)絡(luò)狀的礦層,
but cut into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:—upper, middle, and lower.
不過一把它剖開來,就發(fā)現(xiàn)里邊有性質(zhì)不同的三層——上層,中層,下層。
The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long and horizontal;
上層和下層的筋筋,又長又直;
those of the middle one, very short, and running crosswise between the outside layers.
中層的筋筋很短,同上下兩層密相交叉。
This triune structure, as much as anything else, imparts power to the tail.
這種三位一體的結(jié)構(gòu),跟其它的組織一樣,賦予尾巴以威力。
To the student of old Roman walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin course of tiles
在研究古羅馬城墻的學(xué)者看來,中層是奇特得跟古代的奇珍遺物中那層薄薄的花磚一樣,
always alternating with the stone in those wonderful relics of the antique,
它往往跟石碑交錯在一起,
and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the great strength of the masonry.
而無疑地又給石造建筑物增加了很大的助力。
But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough,
不過,好象這根腱質(zhì)尾巴的這種原有的巨力還不夠大似的,
the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of muscular fibres and filaments,
這種大海獸的整個軀干還橫橫直直地布滿許多肌肉的筋筋和纖維,
which passing on either side the loins and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their might;
這些東西穿過兩邊腰側(cè),直通裂片,不知不覺地跟裂片混凝在一起,大大加強(qiáng)了裂片的力量;
so that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point.
因此,整個鯨身所匯合著的無比的力量,似乎就都集結(jié)在這根尾巴上。