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Lesson 16 A PIECE OF WOOD
第十六課 一塊木頭
How many things in this room are made of wood? There are so many that it would take you a long time to name them.
小朋友, 你屋子里的東西有多少是木頭做的? 太多了, 把它們都說一遍, 要花好長時間呢！
If you look at them, you will see that the wood is not all of one kind. The floor is made of deal, a wood got from the pine tree or the fir tree. The desks may be made of oak.
仔細看看, 就會發(fā)現(xiàn)這些木頭并不都是同一種。地板是松木做的, 松木的英語是deal。這是松樹或者冷杉樹的木頭。書桌呢, 可能是橡木做的。
The pine tree grows well in Norway and in Sweden, and most of the deal we use comes from those countries. Deal is a soft wood, and is easily cut. If you want to cut out a model of a ship or a boat with your knife, you will find that deal is the best wood to use.
在北歐的挪威和瑞典有很多松樹, 英國用的松木, 大部分就來自這些國家。松木是一種軟木, 很容易切開。要是你想用刀子, 把木頭刻成輪船或者小船的形狀, 松木是最合適的木頭了。
Then we have the hard wood called oak, and the pretty dark-red mahogany, and the yellow birch. All these kinds of wood are much used for making chairs and tables.
還有比較硬的木材。硬木里有橡木, 英語叫oak；還有漂亮的暗紅色的紅木, 英語叫mahogany；還有黃色的樺木, 英語叫birch。這些木頭, 很多都用來做桌子和椅子。
We get wood from the big trees of the forest. When a tree is cut down, it is sawn into lengths called logs.
我們的木材, 是從森林里的大樹上來的。大樹砍倒之后, 就鋸成一段一段的“圓木”, 英語叫l(wèi)og。
If we look at the end of a log, we see many rings in the wood. Each ring took one year to grow, so that by counting the rings we can tell how old the tree is. THE END OF A LOG（圓木的切片）
看看圓木的一頭, 可以看見, 木頭上有很多年輪, 每一個年輪都要花一年時間長出來, 所以只要數(shù)一數(shù)年輪, 就能知道這棵樹有多少歲了。
New wood is made every year from the sap or juice of the tree. This new wood grows on the outside of the tree, just inside the bark.
樹的汁液, 英語叫sap。每一年新的木頭就是從樹汁里長出來的。新木頭長在樹的外面, 樹皮的下面。
Let us take some small bits of wood—some matches with the heads cut off will do. We will soak them in water, and then hammer them well on a stone. Each piece of wood then breaks up into threads or fibres. WOOD FIBRE （木纖維）
咱們拿幾個木頭小塊, ——拿幾支切掉了頭的火柴就行。把它們浸在水里, 然后在石頭上砸得粉碎。每一根火柴就都會碎成一段段的纖維。
These fibres are hollow, so that they are really little tubes or pipes in the tree. Through them the sap flows up from the roots to the leaves.
這些纖維的中間是空的, 其實是樹里面的特別小的管子。樹的汁液, 就是通過這些管子, 從樹根流到樹葉里去的。
When wood is used in large pieces for building houses or ships, it is called timber. The round logs of wood are sawn into flat pieces called planks. LOG AND PLANK（圓木和木板）
用于建造屋子和船的是大塊木料（timber）；圓木鋸成的則是平的木板（plank）。
Long ago wood was the only thing used for fires. But now coal is used instead, because it is cheaper and burns longer. Most of our great forests are now cut down, and the wood we use has to be brought from other countries.
很久以前, 人們只用木頭生火, 現(xiàn)在改用煤了, 因為煤的價錢更便宜, 燒的時間也更久。英國現(xiàn)在的森林, 大部分都已經(jīng)砍光了, 英國人只好從別的國家進口木材了。
