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But the world kept getting cooler and cooler until at last the steam turned to water and fell on the world—rain, rain, rain, until there perhaps was one big ocean covering the whole world.
但是世界還在持續冷卻，直到最后水蒸氣變成了水落到地球上—那就是雨，雨不停地下，直到形成了一個巨大的海洋覆蓋在世界上。
But the World still kept on cooling and cooling, and as it cooled it shrank and shriveled and wrinkled and crinkled and puckered like the outside of a prune. You know a prune was once smooth and round when it was a plum. These little wrinkles and crinkles rose up out of the ocean and were the continents and mountains, so you see how big the wrinkles and crinkles really are. The earth is still wrinkling a bit even now, and when it does so it shivers and shakes and we say there has been an earthquake. But the earthquakes nowadays are as nothing to what may have been the tremendous shudder when the continents rose out of the first single ocean. The thunderous roar of that quake may have reached the stars with a stupendous and appalling boom of a bursting, cracking, rending, groaning World, as if the last day had come. Don't you know what stupendous and appalling boom means? Why, it means “stupendous and appalling boom.” But that’ s all guess—for the continents may have risen out of the sea as softly, slowly,silently as a blade of grass grows out of the ground. No one knows.We only know the continents did rise out of the water—we can find seashells on the tops of high mountains, and we know they could only have been made under the water when the mountain was under the water.
但是世界還在繼續變涼，它在變涼的同時開始收縮、枯萎、起皺、卷縮、皺縮，最后變成像梅子干的外皮那樣。你知道梅子干或梅子是光滑滑圓溜溜的。地球上的這些小皺褶從海洋上升起變成了大陸和高山，這下你就明白這些皺褶有多么的大了。我們的地球甚至現在還在一點點地皺縮，當它皺縮的時候，會搖晃、震動，我們就說是發生地震了。但是和陸地在巨大的抖動中從最初的一整片海洋中升起的時候相比，現在的地震根本不算什么。當時的地震肯定發出了轟隆隆的呼嘯聲，世界發出了大得驚人的、可怕的爆裂聲、割裂聲和呻吟聲，這聲音大得都能傳到星星上去了，好像世界末日來臨一樣。你不知道什么是大得驚人的、可怕的轟隆聲嗎？嗯，那就是可怕的、大得驚人的轟隆聲。但這都是我們的猜測，因為也許陸地是非常輕柔地、緩慢地、悄悄地升出了海面呢，就像一片小草葉悄悄地鉆出了地面一樣。沒有人知道。我們唯一確定的就是陸地確實是從水下升上來的，因為我們能在高山頂上找到貝殼，而我們知道那只能是高山還在水下的時候形成的。
