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Lesson 28 A Block Of Salt
第28課 一塊鹽
Every day we eat some of the white powder which we call salt. Salt does our bodies good, and keeps them healthy. We eat it at dinner along with our meat. We eat it, too, with eggs, and watercress, and with many otherkinds of food. The baker also puts salt in our bread.
每天, 我們都會吃掉一種叫做“鹽”的白色粉末。鹽對身體有好處, 能保持身體健康。我們在吃飯的時候, 把鹽跟肉一塊兒吃下去, 也跟雞蛋、豆瓣菜和其他很多種食物, 一塊兒吃下去。面包師傅也會往我們的面包里放鹽。
But where does our white table-salt come from? In the county called Cheshire there are beds of salt far down below the ground.
但是, 我們吃的白色精鹽是從哪兒來的呢? 在英格蘭有一個郡, 叫“柴郡”（Cheshire）；在柴郡, 地下很深的地方, 有很多鹽的礦床。
This salt is like a reddish rock or stone, and it is called rock-salt. The red colour is caused by a little rust of iron being mixed with the salt.
這種鹽的樣子, 像一種紅色的石頭, 叫“巖鹽”。紅色是跟鹽混在一起的少量鐵銹的顏色。
When it rains, the rain-water soaks into the ground and dissolves some of the salt. Then the men pump up this salt water, which is called brine.
下雨的時候, 雨水滲到地下, 把一些鹽溶解了, 人們就可以把這些鹽水抽出來。這種鹽水叫“鹵水”。
When this brine is boiled in big iron pans, the water goes away in steam, and leaves the salt behind in little white crystals.
鹵水放在大鐵鍋里煮的時候, 水變成了蒸汽, 留下的是小小的白色晶體, 這就是鹽。
Let us shake up some salt in a glass of water. See how soon the salt is lost sight of. We cannot see it because it is now mixed with the water, but we can taste it.
咱們把一些鹽放到一杯水里, 搖一搖, 看看食鹽是怎么消失的。食鹽現在跟水混合到一塊兒了, 我們看不到, 但是可以嘗到。
Now we will boil the water in a little sauce-pan. After a time all the water changes into steam, and the bottom of the sauce-pan is covered with crystals of salt. We have got our salt back again.
現在, 用小湯鍋煮一下這些水。過一會兒, 水就都變成了蒸汽, 湯鍋的底下蓋滿了鹽的結晶。我們又重新得到了這些鹽。
