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Lesson 51 A Lump Of Coal
第51課 一塊煤
Let us take a lump of coal in our hand. It is black in colour, and it will dirty our fingers a little, but we must not mind that. Coal is hard; but it breaks into pieces if we strike it with a hammer, and so we say that it is brittle.
小朋友，咱們把一塊煤拿在手里看看。這塊煤是黑色的，會把手指也染黑一點兒，可不要在意。煤是很硬的，但如果拿錘子敲，就能敲碎，所以我們說煤很“脆”。
Where does coal come from? It is found in beds, or layers, or seams, deep down in the earth. The seams of coal are often from three to eight feet thick, and there are layers of sandstone or of clay between them.
煤是哪兒來的？是從深深的地下的“礦床”或者叫“煤層”中找到的。煤層的厚度一般是3英尺到8英尺，煤層之間是砂巖或者粘土。
Look at each lump of coal before you place it on the fire, and some day you may find the mark of a leaf, a fern, or a piece of bark on the coal.
把每一塊煤放在火上燒之前，先看看煤塊。有時候，興許你能在煤塊上找到一片葉子，一片蕨類植物，或者一塊樹皮的痕跡呢！
Coal is now called a mineral, for it is found deep down under the ground; but it was made from trees and plants that grew long ago on the surface of the earth in denseforests. These trees grew up and died and fell down, and others grew on the top of them, till at last a mass of wood was formed many feet in thickness.
煤是一種“礦物”，因為它是在深深的地底下找到的，但它在很久很久以前，是地球表面茂密森林中長著的樹和草。樹先是長大，然后死去，倒下了，又有別的樹長在這些樹的上面，最后就積累了許多英尺厚的木頭。
Then the land on which these old forests grew sank slowly down, and the sea washed up sand and mud on the top of the mass of wood. Since then the wood has been so squeezed and heated, deep down in the earth, that it has been changed from wood to coal.
后來，這些古老森林下面的陸地，慢慢地沉了下去，海水將泥沙沖到了木頭的上面。然后，這些木頭在深深的地下被用力擠壓，加熱，于是就從木頭變成了煤。
