The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural hill; there, confused treasures of iron soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally become a pond. Everywhere were bridges that led nowhere; thoroughfares that were wholly impassable; Babel towers of chimneys, wanting half their height; temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most unlikely situations; carcases of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering in the water, and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood.[qh]

這個時期發生的大地震，第一次震動就把整個地區都震裂了，一直達到它的中心。到處都可以看到地震留下的痕跡。房屋倒塌了；街道完全裂開和堵塞了；地底下被挖掘成深深的凹坑和溝渠；大堆大堆的泥土高高堆積；建筑物由于基礎遭到破壞，動搖不牢，正用大根的木頭支撐著。這里，翻倒在地、雜亂一團的大車橫七豎八地躺在一座峻峭的非自然的小山底下；那里，珍貴的鐵器毫無條理地浸泡在偶然形成的池塘中，腐蝕生銹。到處是不通向任何地方的橋梁，完全不能通行的大路，失去一半高度、像巴別塔①一樣的煙囪，在最意想不到的場所臨時搭建的木房子和圍欄，破爛的住房的骨架，未建成的墻和拱門的斷片，一堆堆的腳手架，雜亂無章的磚塊，巨人般的起重機以及跨立在空處的三腳架。這里有十幾萬個沒有完成的形狀和實體，散亂地混雜在一起，上下倒立，深埋在地下，高聳在空中，腐爛在水里，像夢一樣地難以理解。地震通常的伴隨物——溫泉和火焰噴發，對整個場景增添上一份混亂。在頹垣斷壁之內，沸騰的水上下滾動，發出了嘶嘶的聲音，從那里也發出了火焰的閃耀與怒號；山丘般的灰燼堵塞了來往通道，而且完全改變了本地的法律與風俗。[qh]

In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress; and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly away, upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement.[qh]

簡單地說，尚未峻工、尚未通車的鐵路正在修建中，它從極端雜亂的中心，沿著它的文明與進步的宏偉路線，平靜地、慢慢地向遠處延伸。

注釋：flame n. 火焰；熱情；光輝
v. 焚燒；泛紅
例句：
1. I add the coal on the flame continuously.
他們這一陣子一直在修這條路。
2. Billows of flame swept through the forest.
熊熊烈火席卷森林。

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①巴別塔（Babeltower）：圣經《創世紀》中的故事說：在洪水大劫之后，挪亞的子孫成群向東遷移，走到示拿地方，發現一片廣袤的原野，就決定在那里住下來，并在那里建一座城，城中建一座塔，塔頂通天；不久，那塔節節升高，直入云霄。但后來耶和華變亂了他們的口音，使他們從本來只說一種語言變為說出各種各樣的語言；由于語言不通，停工待料，人們逐漸走散，那座城和那座塔也就半途而廢了。半途而廢的原因在于語言的變亂。“變亂”一詞在希伯來語中讀作“巴別”，因此人們就管那座城叫巴別城，管那座塔叫巴別塔。