Lesson 55 Not a gold mine 并非金矿

叶凝云

原文

    Dreams of finding lost treasure almost came true recently. A new machine called 'The Revealer' has been invented and it has been used to detect gold which has been buried in the ground. The machine was used in a cave near the seashore where -- it is said -- pirates used to hide gold. The pirates would often bury gold in the cave and then fail to collect it. Armed with the new machine, a search party went into the cave hoping to find buried treasure. The leader of the party was examining the soil near the entrance to the cave when the machine showed that there was gold under the ground. Very excited, the party dug a hole two feet deep. They finally found a small gold coin which was almost worthless. The party then searched the whole cave thoroughly but did not find anything except an empty tin trunk. In spite of this, many people are confident that 'The Revealer' may reveal something of value fairly soon.

New words and expressions 生词和短语

gold  n. 金子
mine  n. 矿
treasure  n. 财宝
revealer  n. 探测器
invent  v. 发明

detect  v. 探测
bury  v. 埋藏
cave  n. 山洞
seashore  n. 海岸
pirate  n. 海盗

arm  v. 武装
soil  n. 泥土
entrance  n. 入口
finally  adv. 最后
worthless  adj. 毫无价值的

thoroughly  adv. 彻底地
trunk  n. 行李箱
confident  adj. 有信心的
value  n. 价值

参考译文

    最近，找到失踪宝藏的梦想差一点儿变成现实。一种叫“探宝器”的新机器已经发明出来，并被人们用来探测地下埋藏的金子。在靠近海边的一个据说过去海盗常在里面藏金子的岩洞里，这种机器被派上了用场。海盗们过去常把金子埋藏在那个洞里，可后来却没能取走。一支用这种新机器装备起来的探宝队进入了这个岩洞，希望找到埋藏着的金子。当这个队的队长正在检查洞口附近的土壤时，那台机器显示出它的下面埋有金子。队员们异常激动，就地挖了一个两英尺深的坑，但最后找到的是一枚几乎一钱不值的小金币。队员们接着又把整个洞彻底搜寻了一遍，但除了一只空铁皮箱外什么也没找到。尽管如此，很多人仍然相信“探宝器”很快就会探出值钱的东西来。