初中生英语美文摘抄
初中生英语美文摘抄
美文就是语句非常优美的文章。美文之美 ,是指形式美,包括遣词造句、音韵节律,品读再三,如行山阴道上,美不胜收。学习啦小编分享初中生英语美文，希望可以帮助大家!
初中生英语美文：Oil Refining
An important new industry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war. Crude oil, or petroleum – a dark, thick ooze from the earth – had been known for hundreds of years, but little use had ever been made of it. In the 1850’s Samuel M. Kier, a manufacturer in western Pennsylvania, began collecting the oil from local seepages and refining it into kerosene. Refining, like smelting, is a process of removing impurities from a raw material.
Kerosene was used to light lamps. It was a cheap substitute for whale oil, which was becoming harder to get. Soon there was a large demand for kerosene. People began to search for new supplies of petroleum.
The first oil well was drilled by E.L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it “ Drake’s Folly”. But when he had drilled down about 70 feet(21 meters), Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day.
News of Drake’s success brought oil prospectors to the scene. By the early 1860’s these wildcatters were drilling for “ black gold” all over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.
Crude oil could be refined into many products. For some years kerosene continued to be the principal one. It was sold in grocery stores and door-to-door. In the 1880’s refiners learned how to make other petroleum products such as waxes and lubricating oils. Petroleum was not then used to make gasoline or heating oil.
炼油
一种重要的新兴工业--炼油业在国内战争后成长起来。未加工的石油，或原油--一种深色的地下的稠浆--数百年来一直为大众所知，但是人们却很少使用过它。
在十九世纪五十年代，萨缪尔?M?科尔，宾西法尼亚西部的一位制造商，开始从当地的溢出物中收集石油
并将它炼成煤油。与冶炼矿石一样，石油提炼是一个从未加工的原料中除去杂质的过程。煤油被用来点灯。
它是鲸油的一种便宜的替代品，而鲸油正变得越来越难以获得。不久就产生了对煤油的大量需求。人们开始寻找新的石油供应。第一口油井为E?L?瑞克，一个退休的火车检票员所钻得。1859年他开始在宾西法尼亚的泰特斯维尔钻井。整个的这项冒险事业看起来是如此不现实和愚蠢以致旁观者称之为"鸭子的蠢行"。(译者注：Drake'sFolly,drake
在这里意含双关，即指瑞克的名字，又指该词的本义即鸭子。)但当瑞克往下钻至70英尺(21米)的时候，他发现了石油。他的油井从此每天生产20桶原油。瑞克成功的消息将石油勘探者们吸引到现场。截止到19世纪60年代早期，这些冒险者为寻找"黑色的金子"钻探遍了整个宾西法尼亚西部。这项繁荣的事业在刺激性和粗犷的西部气氛上可与1848年的加州淘金热相媲美，而且它为勘探者带来了远超过淘金潮的财富。原油能被提炼成许多产品。多年以来煤油一直是主要的一种产品。
它在杂货店中出售由人挨户推销。19世纪八十九十年代炼油者们懂得了生产其它石油产品，如蜡和润滑油。那时石油还没有被用来制造汽油或采暖装置用油。
初中生英语美文：Raising Oysters
In the oysters were raised in much the same way as dirt farmers raised tomatoes- by transplanting them. First, farmers selected the oyster bed, cleared the bottom of old shells and other debris, then scattered clean shells about. Next, they ”planted” fertilized oyster eggs, which within two or three weeks hatched into larvae. The larvae drifted until they attached themselves to the clean shells on the bottom. There they remained and in time grew into baby oysters called seed or spat. The spat grew larger by drawing in seawater from which they derived microscopic particles of food. Before long, farmers gathered the baby oysters, transplanted them once more into another body of water to fatten them up.
Until recently the supply of wild oysters and those crudely farmed were more than enough to satisfy people’s needs. But today the delectable seafood is no longer available in abundance. The problem has become so serious that some oyster beds have vanished entirely.
Fortunately, as far back as the early 1900’s marine biologists realized that if new measures were not taken, oysters would become extinct or at best a luxury food. So they set up well-equipped hatcheries and went to work. But they did not have the proper equipment or the skill to handle the eggs. They did not know when, what, and how to feed the larvae. And they knew little about the predators that attack and eat baby oysters by the millions. They failed, but they doggedly kept at it. Finally, in the 1940’s a significant breakthrough was made.
The marine biologists discovered that by raising the temperature of the water, they could induce oysters to spawn not only in the summer but also in the fall, winter, and spring. Later they developed a technique for feeding the larvae and rearing them to spat. Going still further, they succeeded in breeding new strains that were resistant to diseases, grew faster and larger, and flourished in water of different salinities and temperatures. In addition, the cultivated oysters tasted better!
饲养牡蛎
过去人们饲养牡蛎的方式很大程度上类似于田地里的农夫种植蕃茄--通过移植来饲养它们。
首先，农夫选好牡蛎苗床，清除底部的旧壳和其它杂物，然后四处撒播干净的壳。接着，他们"栽种"已受精的牡蛎卵。这些卵在2～3周内会孵化成幼贝。
幼贝一直漂流直到粘在苗床底部干净的壳上为止。它们会呆在那儿并逐渐长成小牡蛎。我们称之为种子或贝
苗。贝苗吸进海水中的微小生物作为食物从而越长越大。不久之后，农夫将这些小牡蛎收
集起来，把它们移种进其他的水域加快其生长，然后再次将它们移种进另外的水域以使其肥壮起来。直到最近，野生的以及人工饲养的牡蛎完全能够满足人们的需要。
但是今天这种可口的海味已不再大量存在。这个问题已经变得如此严重以至于一些牡蛎苗床已完全消失。幸运的是，早在20世纪初期海洋生物学家们就意识到如果不采取新的措施，牡蛎将会灭绝或至少会变为一种奢侈的食品。因此他们建造了装备良好的孵卵场所并开始工作。但是他们尚没有适当的装置或技术来处理牡蛎卵。他们不知道何时、用什么以及如何喂养幼贝。他们对捕食数百万幼小牡蛎的动物天敌也所知无几。
他们失败了，但他们顽强地坚持了下来。终于，在20世纪40年代，一个重要的突破性的进展产生了。海洋生物学家发现，升高水温能够诱导牡蛎不仅在夏季也在秋季、冬季和春季里产卵。后来他们发展了一项技术来喂养幼贝至其长成贝苗。
他们进一步成功地培养出了新的品种，可以抵抗疾病、长得更快、更大并且在不同的盐度和温度的水中都能茁壮生长。此外，这些培殖出的牡蛎口感更佳!
初中生英语美文：Plate Tectonics and Sea-floor Spreading
The theory of plate tectonics describes the motions of the lithosphere, the comparatively rigid outer layer of the Earth that includes all the crust and part of the underlying mantle. The lithosphere(n.[地]岩石圈)is divided into a few dozen plates of various sizes and shapes, in general the plates are in motion with respect to one another. A mid-ocean ridge is a boundary between plates where new lithospheric material is injected from below. As the plates diverge from a mid-ocean ridge they slide on a more yielding layer at the base of the lithosphere.
Since the size of the Earth is essentially constant, new lithosphere can be created at the mid-ocean ridges only if an equal amount of lithospheric material is consumed elsewhere. The site of this destruction is another kind of plate boundary: a subduction zone. There one plate dives under the edge of another and is reincorporated into the mantle. Both kinds of plate boundary are associated with fault systems, earthquakes and volcanism, but the kinds of geologic activity observed at the two boundaries are quite different.
The idea of sea-floor spreading actually preceded the theory of plate tectonics. In its original version, in the early 1960’s, it described the creation and destruction of the ocean floor, but it did not specify rigid lithospheric plates. The hypothesis was substantiated soon afterward by the discovery that periodic reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field are recorded in the oceanic crust. As magma rises under the mid-ocean ridge, ferromagnetic minerals in the magma become magnetized in the direction of the magma become magnetized in the direction of the geomagnetic field. When the magma cools and solidifies, the direction and the polarity of the field are preserved in the magnetized volcanic rock. Reversals of the field give rise to a series of magnetic stripes running parallel to the axis of the rift. The oceanic crust thus serves as a magnetic tape recording of the history of the geomagnetic field that can be dated independently; the width of the stripes indicates the rate of the sea-floor spreading.
板块结构与海床扩展
板块结构理论描述岩石圈的运动。岩石圈是相对坚硬的地球外层，包括全部地壳和部分地幔。
岩石圈被划分为几十个大小不同形状各异的板块，一般而言这些板块都处于相对运动之中。一道中海脊是板块之间的边界，在那里新的岩石圈的物质从下部注入。
当板块从中海脊脱离时，它们滑向在岩石圈基部较易变形的地层上。因为地球的大小本质上是不
变的，只有同等数量的岩石圈物质在其它地方被吞没，新的岩石圈才能生成。销毁旧岩石
圈的地方形成另外一种板块边界：一块潜没的区域。在这里，一块板块潜没到另一板块的边缘之下并结合入地幔之中。
两种板块边界均与地层系统、地震以及火山活动有关，但在两种边界处观察到的诸般地质活动却迥然不同。海床扩展说实际上早于板块结构理论。在20世纪60年代它的理论雏形中，描述了海底的生成和毁灭，但没有详细介绍坚硬的岩石圈板块。这个假定不久之后为发现所证实。
该发现表明地球磁场周期性的逆转被记录在海洋地壳中。当岩浆从中海脊下涌起的时候，岩浆中的磁铁矿物质按地磁场的方向被磁化。岩浆冷却并凝固下来后，地磁场的方向和磁极被保留在磁化了的火山岩中。磁场的逆转形成一系列与断层轴线平行的条形磁区。
这样海洋壳就扮演了磁带的角色，记录下可以鉴定时间的地磁场的历史。条形磁区的宽度表明了海底扩展的速度。
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