評論
打印
An interminable debate then broke out between believers and skeptics in the scholarly societies and scientific journals.
于是，在學術團體里和科學報刊中產生了相信者和懷疑者，這兩派人無休止地爭論著。
The monster question inflamed all minds.
怪物問題激動著人們。
During this memorable campaign, journalists making a profession of science battled with those making a profession of wit,
自以為懂科學的新聞記者和一向自以為多才的文人開起火來，他們在這次值得紀念的筆戰中花費了不少的墨水！
spilling waves of ink and some of them even two or three drops of blood, since they went from sea serpents to the most offensive personal remarks.
甚至有幾個人還流了兩三滴血，因為有人把針對大海蛇的筆鋒移向一些態度傲慢的家伙身上了。
For six months the war seesawed.
在六個月當中，爭論繼續著。
With inexhaustible zest, the popular press took potshots at feature articles from the Geographic Institute of Brazil,
彼此有理，各執一詞。當時流行的小報都興致勃勃地刊登爭論的文章，它們不是攻擊巴西地理學院、
the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., at discussions in The Indian Archipelago,
柏林皇家科學院、不列顛學術聯合會或華盛頓斯密孫學院發表的權威論文，就是駁斥印度群島報、
in Cosmos published by Father Moigno, in Petermann's Mittheilungen,and at scientific chronicles in the great French and foreign newspapers.
摩亞諾神父的宇宙雜志、皮德曼的消息報里面的討論和法國及其他各國大報刊的科學新聞。
When the monster's detractors cited a saying by the botanist Linnaeus that nature doesn't make leaps, witty writers in the popular periodicals parodied it,
這些多才的作家故意曲解反對派也常引證的林奈的一句話：
maintaining in essence that nature doesn't make lunatics, and ordering their contemporaries never to give the lie to nature by believing in krakens,
大自然不制造蠢東西；懇求大家不要相信北海的大怪魚、
sea serpents, Moby Dicks, and other all-out efforts from drunken seamen.
大海蛇、莫比·狄克和瘋狂的海員們臆造出來的其它怪物的存在，不要因此而否定了大自然。
