During life animal bodies undergo continual decomposition and recomposition; life is in fact a perpetual metamorphosis. Whilst alive, the products of vitality2 (excreta) are returned to or deposited in or on the surface of the earth, and carried by drainage and other means into the nearest water, river, or stream; we have lived to see them thrown en masse into a tidal river the waters of which serve at the same time to furnish most of that required for the economy of a vast capital and many surrounding towns; in the same country the cesspools and dead-wells constructed to receive the liquid and solid excreta of dwelling-houses are not unfrequently constructed close to the pump-well which is to supply the inhabitants with pure water for culinary purposes.
To these extraordinary facts I shall shortly return. They show the extent to which intelligent, talented, shrewd men may suffer themselves to be deluded3 and led aside from the path pointed4 out by common sense, more especially when crotchets are substituted for principles; when men fancy that in following out some imperfectly-observed inquiry5, they are imitating nature —that nature which is ever consonant6 with herself, which created all animals, and which knows how to dispose of their excreta when living, and of their remains7 when dead, without detriment8 to the living. The Caffre, the Hottentot, the Bosjieman, the North-American Indian, the Bedouin, require no sanitary9 arrangements, no laws regulating, nor staff to carry out a code of theoretical Utopian schemes, sure to revert10 on the heads of those foolish enough to employ them; the excreta deposited on the earth disappear, so do also the remains of animal life. We never hear of any pestilence11, fever, scurvy12, dysentery, small-pox, hooping-cough, malignant13 sore-throat, or other zymotics, originating amongst them. It would, indeed, almost seem that such evils do actually owe their origin to human agency and to human civilization; where civilized14 man makes his highest endeavours, there his most signal failure occurs; experience teaches him nothing; the insolence15 of wealth naturally leads to the contempt of all knowledge derived16 from means otherwise than national and native. In Britain the muddy banks of rivers, which in Holland and Belgium are covered with vegetation, lie exposed, festering in the sun’s rays, the fertile source of agues and other diseases; here they are being continually exposed, or alternately covered with water, which is then allowed to evaporate; this mud is not suffered to rest, but stirred up in a variety of ways, as best suits the convenience of the parties interested. It suits, for example, the proprietor17 of a long-neglected drain or sewer18, cesspool or filthy19 stagnant20 canal, or a common ditch, which once was a clear rivulet21, to cleanse22 it out. He selects the warmest weather and the longest day for that special work, or he spreads the contents of the cesspools of half a century’s collection on the fields, suffering it to remain there for weeks, thus rendering23 the roads all but impassable. The selected lives of the finest men in the kingdom, petted, fed, clothed, and lodged24 at the public charge, without anxiety or a care for to-morrow—the Guards of England—die under his fostering hand, in the ratio of three to one of the care-worn and toil-exhausted peasant, miserably25 fed, scantily26 clothed, badly lodged, and full of anxiety for the morrow. Now, how comes this? Simply, I believe, from this—that man, knowing much better than nature, has chosen to take her place, to do her work clumsily, and to fancy that he is doing it well; to interfere27, and not to carry through the works he has undertaken. What other proof can be required than the fact that, on the frontiers of the Cape28 of Good Hope, in the healthiest country in the world—a fact proved not only by the statistics of the celebrated29 statistician, Major Tulloch, but by the evidence of all medical men who have resided there,—where the mortality is not a half of what it is amongst the most favoured counties of England—in such a country, where every man might have had a mile square of ground to live on, military arrangements contrived30 to break down whole regiments31 of the healthiest young men England could produce.29
The Dutch Boers and Hottentots were astonished, as well they might be. “Towards the end of June, 1836,” observes Major Tulloch, “very decided33 symptoms of scurvy began to manifest themselves among part of the 75th Regiment32 at Fort Armstrong, and subsequently extended to most of the other stations along the frontier. The total number of cases reported either as scorbutus or purpura, were 134, of which 4 proved fatal; the others readily yielded to change of air, with improved diet and accommodation.” As was to be expected, the Hottentot troops, on the same ground, being left to act generally in accordance with the dictates34 of their own common sense, wholly escaped the disease.
Let us now briefly35 review the means adopted by nature for the disposal of those remains so embarrassing to the civilized, so innocuous to man living in a semi-barbarous or savage36 state, and which prove to the former a source of infinite expense, discomfort37, and disease. The problem has reference to the soil, to the air, to the water; to the condition of all three as regards the preservation38 of animal life generally, man included.
I have already remarked in a preceding chapter, that all organized beings after death undergo a change, in consequence of which their bodies, as such, disappear from the surface of the earth. In a short time after the event, animal matters lose their cohesion39; they are dissipated into the air, leaving only the mineral elements they had derived from the soil. The change commences immediately after death: with the aid of moisture and exposure to the air, the bodies of animals, as well as plants, undergo changes, the last of which are30 the conversion40 of their carbonic acid and of their hydrogen into water, of their nitrogen into ammonia, of their sulphur into sulphuric acid. Thus, their elements assume or resume forms in which they can again serve as food to a new generation of plants and animals. “The same atom of carbon which, as the constituent41 of a muscular fibre in the heart of a man, assists to propel the blood through his frame, was perhaps a constituent of the heart of one of his ancestors, and any atom of nitrogen in our brain has perhaps been a part of the brain of an Egyptian or of a negro.
“As the intellect of the men of this generation draws the food required for its development and cultivation42 from the products of the intellectual activity of former times, so may the constituents43 or elements of the bodies of a former generation pass into, and become parts of, our own frames. The proximate cause of the changes which occur in organized bodies after death is the action of the oxygen of the air on many of their constituents. This action only takes place when water—that is, moisture—is present, and requires a certain temperature.”
The great agent in all these changes is oxygen, as has been already sufficiently44 explained when speaking of the decomposition of vegetables after death. I shall first attend to the influence these changes have on the soil as producing agents, intended to restore to the soil those vivifying powers which it never seems to lose when man interferes45 not; and lastly, to consider briefly its influence on man himself.
The development of scarcely any plant can be imagined without the assistance of nitrogen or of azotized materials. Now, under certain conditions known to all botanists46, this azote must come from rain water, either in the form of atmospheric47 air, or under that of ammonia. Chemists have, I think, proved that it originates in the ammonia contained in the atmosphere, and not in the azote as it naturally exists in the air. The problem is put and solved in this way by Liebig, “Let us consider a farm suitably conducted, and of an extent sufficient to maintain itself, ammonia exists there in a sufficient abundance in rain water and snow; in the water of most fountains; it exists in the air in abundance, and is being constantly renewed by the decomposition of animal and vegetable bodies, and is restored to the soil by the rain, and then absorbed by the roots of plants, and produces, according to the organs, albumen, gluten, quinine, morphine, cyanogene, and a great number of other crystallized combinations.”
The most decisive proof of the part played by ammonia in the nourishment48 of plants is furnished us by the use of manure49 in the cultivation of cereals and green forage50. According to the distinguished51 chemist so often quoted in this essay, animal manure (fumier) acts solely52 by reason of its production of ammonia. The history of the Peruvian guano, a substance so highly ammoniacal, proves all these assertions; this celebrated manure, which fertilizes53 a soil (the Peruvian) of the most remarkable54 sterility55, consisting mainly of white sand and argil, is composed chiefly of urates, urate of ammonia, oxalate of ammonia, phosphate of ammonia, carbonate of ammonia, and some other salts.
Thus did the ancient Peruvian, like the Chinese, stumble on the solution of problems involving the fate of millions by simple experience alone, wholly unaided by science, which steps in afterwards and gives the rationale of the process; teaches us that all wheats do not equally abound56 in gluten; that rice is poor in azote; potatoes equally so. Practical agriculturists still find difficulty in applying with success the processes recommended by the chemist; but these, no doubt, will gradually be overcome.
“Since we find azote31 in all the lichens57 which grow on basaltic rocks; that the fields produce more azote than is brought to them in the shape of aliment; that we meet with azote in all soils (terrains), even in minerals which happen never to come in contact with organic matters; that in the atmosphere, in rain-water, and in that of fountains or springs, in every description of soil we meet with this azote under the form of ammonia, as a product of the slow combustion58 or of the putrefaction59 of anterior60 generations; that the production of azotized principles greatly increases in plants with the quantity of ammonia presented to them in animal manure,—we may in all safety conclude that it is the ammonia of the atmosphere which furnishes the azote to plants.
“It results from the foregoing32 that the carbonic acid, the ammonia, and the water, include in their elements the conditions necessary for the production of all the principles of living beings. These three bodies are the ultimate products of the putrefaction and of the eremacausis (slow combustion) of all animal and vegetable races. All the products of the vital force, so numerous and so varied—all after death return to the primitive61 forms in which they first appeared or from which they originally sprung. Death, the complete dissolution of a generation, is always the source of a new generation.”
Equally curious, but foreign to my present purpose, is the inquiry into the sources of the inorganic62 principles in plants and animals. These sources were inappreciable until a more refined chemistry appeared. Sea-water contains only the ?
1
12,400
th of its weight of carbonate of lime, and yet this quantity suffices for the production of the essential components63 of the shells of myriads64 of crustaceans65 and corals. Whilst the atmosphere contains but ?
4
10,000
ths to ?
6
10,000
ths of its volume of carbonic acid, the amount in sea water is more by a hundred times, and yet in this medium we find another world of animal and vegetable life, which finds re-united in the ammonia and carbonic acid the same conditions which enable human beings on the surface of the solid earth (terra firma) to live and to maintain their species.
It would even seem that the essential constituents of some organs have altered in the course of ages, without affecting, or being materially affected66 by, the principles of life. Thus it would seem that fossil bones contain the fluate (fluorure de calcium67) of calcium in much larger quantities than the bones of recent animals; and the same remark has been made in respect of the composition of the crania of men found at Pompeii. They resemble in this respect the antediluvian68 fossil remains.
Thus, imperceptibly, as it were, proceed the grand operations of nature, and if accidentally any vast collection of excreta should happen to be found, as in the guano islands of the dry regions of America, they seem not to affect the life or health of those animals which repose69 on them. It is the same in the dry regions of Southern Africa, where sheep and cattle, in order to protect them from wild animals, must, on the approach of evening, be collected into a fold or kraal, surrounded by a strong fence of the mimosa, and carefully shut in. On this surface, of no great extent, sheep and oxen stand or rest for the evening: their excreta accumulate, but do not putrefy, for the air on the kraal is pure comparatively, and never injurious to the sheep or cattle; the surface of the kraal is, moreover, generally dry, even when the soil may be accidentally inundated71 by rain, which, when it falls, as it does occasionally, descends72 in torrents73. From the African soil is thus withdrawn74 by man the excreta of all the domestic animals; the semi-barbarous Boer never returns it to the soil, and thus the loss is permanent; but it would seem that this loss, caused by man’s interference, in no shape, as far as can be observed, affects the fertility of the soil, called on to reproduce only the native pasture, or the wild herbs natural to it. It is otherwise when man demands from the soil heavier exhausting crops of wheat and hemp75, tobacco, &c.: his interference with nature’s balance must be gone into, or soon his hopes of a harvest would be in vain. Then comes the theory of manures, a theory beset76 with difficulties, and which, besides involving man in much labour and expense, is productive, or presumed to be on sufficiently probable grounds the cause, of some, if not of many, of the diseases which afflict77 humanity. However this may be, whatever be the extent to which a dense78 population and a neglect of the so-called sanitary regulations subject man to infirmity and disease, one thing is certain—he has interfered79 with nature’s balance, and must take on himself the whole task. If he shuts up a harbour mouth, refusing entrance to the tide, confining within the harbour a portion of that ocean water which nature intended should be constantly agitated80 by tides and currents, he may expect as results that the shores of that harbour will soon become uninhabitable by man. All animals instinctively81 shun82 the sick, leaving them apart; man crowds them together into close, ill-ventilated hospitals, sweeping83 off in hundreds those whom the battle had spared.
It were foreign to the object of this work to enter more fully70 into the history of that dissolution of animal structures which forms so important a part of the materials we call manure, destined84 to restore to the soil that which artificial crops had deprived it of. Every part of animal bodies owes its origin to vegetables or plants, no part being formed by the vital force, and thus all the remains of animals of necessity form manures.
On the management of these, man’s civilization depends; without agriculture there can be no dense population; without the dense population there can be no civilization. On these points many remarkably85 erroneous opinions have been, and still perhaps are, maintained even by practical men, who nevertheless are often in error—merely, it is true, as to the theory on which they fancy they act, more rarely as to the practice they have from experience adopted.
In calmly considering this important question—the right management of manures composed of the excreta or the remains of animal and vegetable life, it becomes evident that several problems, atmospheric as well as terrestrial, remain yet to be solved. The surface of the soil, as modified by man’s labour, presents itself under a very different aspect to what nature intended it to be. A lake may be drained with much advantage to a country, but the surface so exposed cannot be too soon cultivated, to prevent the spread of fevers sure to arise from the decaying, fermenting86, and putrefying of the lower forms of animal and vegetable life thus brought into existence, especially when aided by those epidemic87 constitutions of the atmosphere striking directly at man’s existence on the earth.
For civilized man there is, there can be, no repose. There are forces in nature against which, with all his industry, he may never be able to prevail. The tropical forest returns upon him the instant, as it were, that he ceases to hew88 it down, obliterating89 in an incredibly short time all traces of human labour. The lands of Western France can scarcely be secured from the inroads of the sands driven by western gales90 towards the interior; the bog91 is checked only by constant labour, and the hill where once the heath grew spontaneously, can only be retained in a green and grassy92 condition by the constant watchfulness93 and labour of men. Twenty years of neglect suffice to restore the heath, and to sweep away all vestiges94 of human culture.
点击收听单词发音
1 decomposition | |
n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃 | |
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2 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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3 deluded | |
v.欺骗,哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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5 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
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6 consonant | |
n.辅音;adj.[音]符合的 | |
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7 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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8 detriment | |
n.损害;损害物,造成损害的根源 | |
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9 sanitary | |
adj.卫生方面的,卫生的,清洁的,卫生的 | |
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10 revert | |
v.恢复,复归,回到 | |
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11 pestilence | |
n.瘟疫 | |
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12 scurvy | |
adj.下流的,卑鄙的,无礼的;n.坏血病 | |
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13 malignant | |
adj.恶性的,致命的;恶意的,恶毒的 | |
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14 civilized | |
a.有教养的,文雅的 | |
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15 insolence | |
n.傲慢;无礼;厚颜;傲慢的态度 | |
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16 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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17 proprietor | |
n.所有人;业主;经营者 | |
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18 sewer | |
n.排水沟,下水道 | |
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19 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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20 stagnant | |
adj.不流动的,停滞的,不景气的 | |
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21 rivulet | |
n.小溪,小河 | |
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22 cleanse | |
vt.使清洁,使纯洁,清洗 | |
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23 rendering | |
n.表现,描写 | |
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24 lodged | |
v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 );暂住;埋入;(权利、权威等)归属 | |
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25 miserably | |
adv.痛苦地;悲惨地;糟糕地;极度地 | |
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26 scantily | |
adv.缺乏地;不充足地;吝啬地;狭窄地 | |
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27 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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28 cape | |
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风 | |
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29 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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30 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
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31 regiments | |
(军队的)团( regiment的名词复数 ); 大量的人或物 | |
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32 regiment | |
n.团,多数,管理;v.组织,编成团,统制 | |
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33 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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34 dictates | |
n.命令,规定,要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 );口授;支配;摆布 | |
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35 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
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36 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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37 discomfort | |
n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便 | |
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38 preservation | |
n.保护,维护,保存,保留,保持 | |
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39 cohesion | |
n.团结,凝结力 | |
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40 conversion | |
n.转化,转换,转变 | |
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41 constituent | |
n.选民;成分,组分;adj.组成的,构成的 | |
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42 cultivation | |
n.耕作,培养,栽培(法),养成 | |
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43 constituents | |
n.选民( constituent的名词复数 );成分;构成部分;要素 | |
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44 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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45 interferes | |
vi. 妨碍,冲突,干涉 | |
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46 botanists | |
n.植物学家,研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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47 atmospheric | |
adj.大气的,空气的;大气层的;大气所引起的 | |
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48 nourishment | |
n.食物,营养品;营养情况 | |
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49 manure | |
n.粪,肥,肥粒;vt.施肥 | |
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50 forage | |
n.(牛马的)饲料,粮草;v.搜寻,翻寻 | |
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51 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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52 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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53 fertilizes | |
n.施肥( fertilize的名词复数 )v.施肥( fertilize的第三人称单数 ) | |
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54 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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55 sterility | |
n.不生育,不结果,贫瘠,消毒,无菌 | |
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56 abound | |
vi.大量存在;(in,with)充满,富于 | |
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57 lichens | |
n.地衣( lichen的名词复数 ) | |
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58 combustion | |
n.燃烧;氧化;骚动 | |
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59 putrefaction | |
n.腐坏,腐败 | |
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60 anterior | |
adj.较早的;在前的 | |
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61 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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62 inorganic | |
adj.无生物的;无机的 | |
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63 components | |
(机器、设备等的)构成要素,零件,成分; 成分( component的名词复数 ); [物理化学]组分; [数学]分量; (混合物的)组成部分 | |
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64 myriads | |
n.无数,极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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65 crustaceans | |
n.甲壳纲动物(如蟹、龙虾)( crustacean的名词复数 ) | |
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66 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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67 calcium | |
n.钙(化学符号Ca) | |
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68 antediluvian | |
adj.史前的,陈旧的 | |
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69 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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70 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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71 inundated | |
v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 );(洪水般地)涌来;充满;给予或交予(太多事物)使难以应付 | |
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72 descends | |
v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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73 torrents | |
n.倾注;奔流( torrent的名词复数 );急流;爆发;连续不断 | |
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74 withdrawn | |
vt.收回;使退出;vi.撤退,退出 | |
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75 hemp | |
n.大麻;纤维 | |
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76 beset | |
v.镶嵌;困扰,包围 | |
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77 afflict | |
vt.使身体或精神受痛苦,折磨 | |
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78 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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79 interfered | |
v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 );调停;妨碍;干涉 | |
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80 agitated | |
adj.被鼓动的,不安的 | |
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81 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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82 shun | |
vt.避开,回避,避免 | |
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83 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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84 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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85 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
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86 fermenting | |
v.(使)发酵( ferment的现在分词 );(使)激动;骚动;骚扰 | |
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87 epidemic | |
n.流行病;盛行;adj.流行性的,流传极广的 | |
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88 hew | |
v.砍;伐;削 | |
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89 obliterating | |
v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 );涂去;擦掉;彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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90 gales | |
龙猫 | |
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91 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
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92 grassy | |
adj.盖满草的;长满草的 | |
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93 watchfulness | |
警惕,留心; 警觉(性) | |
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94 vestiges | |
残余部分( vestige的名词复数 ); 遗迹; 痕迹; 毫不 | |
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