CHAPTER VI WEATHER BUREAUS

 When the lunch was over the Doctor took an armchair beside the kitchen stove and lit his pipe. "I am thinking," he said to the gull¹, "of starting a new department in my post office. Many of the birds who have helped me in this mail business seem to be remarkably² good weather prophets. And what you have just told me about your knowledge of the sea and storms has given me the idea of opening a weather bureau."

 

"What's that?" asked Jip, who was brushing up the table crumbs³, to be put out later for the birds on the houseboat deck.

 

"A weather bureau," said the Doctor, "is a very important thing—especially for shipping⁴ and farmers. It is an office for telling you what kind of weather you're going to have."

 

"How do they do it?" asked Gub-Gub.

 

"They don't," said the Doctor—"at least they do sometimes. But as often as not they're wrong. They do it with instruments—thermometers, barometers⁵, hygrometers and wind gauges⁶ and things. But most weather bureaus so far have been pretty poor. I think I can do much better with my birds. They very seldom go wrong in prophesying⁸ the weather."

 

"Well, for what parts of the world do you want to know the weather, Doctor?" asked the gull. "If it's just for Fantippo or West Africa it will be easy as pie. All you ever get here is tornadoes⁹. The rest of the year is just frying heat. But if you want to prophesy⁷ the weather for the Straits of Magellan or Nova Zembla or those countries where they have all sorts of fancy weathers, it will be a different matter. Even prophesying the weather for England would keep you busy. Myself, I never thought that the weather itself knew what it was going to do next in England."

 

"The English climate's all right," put in Cheapside, his feathers ruffling¹⁰ up for a fight. "Don't you get turning up your long nautical¹¹ nose at England, my lad. What do you call this 'ere? A climate? Well, I should call it a Turkish bath. In England we like variety in our climate. And we get it. That's why Englishmen 'ave such 'earty red faces. 'Ere the poor creatures turn black."

 

"I would like," said the Doctor, "to be able to prophesy weather for every part of the world. I really don't see why I shouldn't; this office, together with my branch offices, is in communication with birds going to every corner of the earth. I could improve the farming and the agriculture of the whole human race. But also, and especially, I want to have a bureau for ocean weather, to help the ships."

 

"Ah," said the gull, "for land weather I wouldn't be much help to you. But when it comes to the oceans, I know a bird who can tell you more about sea weather than any bureau ever knew."

 

"Oh," said the Doctor, "who is that?"

 

"We call him One Eye," said the gull. "He's an old, old albatross. Nobody knows how old. He lost an eye fighting with a fish eagle over a flounder. But he's the most marvelous weather prophet that ever lived. All sea birds have the greatest respect for his opinions. He has never been known to make a mistake."

 

"Indeed?" said the Doctor. "I would like very much to meet him."

 

"I'll get him for you," said the gull. "His home is not very far from here—out on a rock off the Angola coast. He lives there because the shellfish are so plentiful¹² on the rock and he's too feeble—with his bad sight—to catch the other kinds of livelier fish. It's a sort of dull life for his old age, after all the great traveling he has done. He'll be no end pleased to know you want his help. I'll go and tell him right away."

 

"That will be splendid," said the Doctor. "I think your friend should be very helpful to us."

 

So the gull, after thanking the Doctor and Dab-Dab for a very excellent luncheon¹³, took a couple of postcards which were going to Angola and flew off to get One Eye, the albatross.

 

Later in the afternoon the gull returned and with him came the great One Eye, oldest of bird weather prophets.

 

The Doctor said afterward¹⁴ that he had never seen a bird who reminded him so much of a sailor. He had the rolling, straddling walk of a seafaring man; he smelt¹⁵ strongly of fish; and whenever he spoke¹⁶ of the weather he had an odd trick of squinting¹⁷ up at the sky with his one eye, the way old sailors often do.

 

He agreed with the Doctor that the idea of a bird weather bureau was quite a possible thing and would lead to much better weather reports than had so far been possible. Then for a whole hour and a half he gave the Doctor a lecture on winds. Every word of this John Dolittle wrote down in a notebook.

 

Now the wind is the chief thing that changes the weather. And if, for instance, you know that it is raining in the Channel Islands at tea-time on a Thursday—and there's a northeast wind blowing—you can be pretty sure that the rain will reach England some time Thursday night.

 

The next thing that the Doctor did was to write to all the branch postmasters and have them arrange exactly with the different kinds of birds a time for them to start their yearly migrations—not just the second week in November, or anything like that—but an exact day and hour. Then by knowing how fast each kind of bird flies, he could calculate almost to a minute what time they should arrive at their destination. And if they were late in arriving, then he would know that bad weather had delayed them on the way or that they had put off their starting till storms died down.

 

The Doctor, the gull, One Eye, Dab-Dab, Cheapside, Speedy-the-Skimmer and Too-Too the mathematician¹⁸ put their heads together and discussed far into the night, working out a whole lot more arrangements and particulars for running a good weather bureau. And a few weeks later a second brand new notice board appeared on the walls of the Doctor's post office, beside the one for Outgoing and Incoming Mails.

 

The new notice board was marked at the top Weather Reports, and would read something like this:

 

The Green Herons were one day, three hours and nine minutes late in their arrival at Cape¹⁹ Horn from the Sandwich Islands. Wind coming south-southeast. Blustery weather can be expected along the west coast of Chili²⁰ and light gales²¹ in the Antarctic Sea.

 

And then the land birds, particularly those that live on berries, were very helpful to the Doctor in telling him by letter if the Winter was going to be a hard one or not in their particular country. And he used to write to farmers all over the world, advising them whether they could expect a sharp frost, a wet Spring or a dry Summer—which, of course, helped them in their farming tremendously.

 

And then the Fantippans, who so far had been very timid about going far out to sea on account of storms, now that they had a good weather bureau and knew what weather to expect, began building larger sailboats, instead of their little frail²² canoes. And they became what is called a mercantile nation, traded up and down the shores of West Africa, and even went as far south as the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean to traffic in goods with people of foreign lands.

 

This made the kingdom of Fantippo much richer and more important than it had been before, of course. And a large grant of money was given by the King to the Foreign Mails post office, which was used by the Doctor in making the houseboat better and bigger.

 

And soon the No-Man's-Land Weather Bureau began to get known abroad. The farmers in England, who had received such good weather reports by letter from the Doctor, went up to London and told the government that their own reports were no good, that a certain John Dolittle, M.D., was writing them much better reports from some place in Africa.

 

And the government got quite worked up about it. And they sent the Royal Meteorologist, an old gray-haired weather man, down to Fantippo to see how the Doctor was doing it.

 

 

John Dolittle saw him one day, snooping around the post office, looking at the notice boards and trying to find out things. But he found out nothing. And when he got back to England he said to the government:

 

"He hasn't any new instruments at all. The man's a fake. All he has down there is an old barge²³ and a whole lot of messy birds flying around."

1 gull   

n.鸥；受骗的人；v.欺诈

参考例句：

• The ivory gull often follows polar bears to feed on the remains of seal kills.象牙海鸥经常跟在北极熊的后面吃剩下的海豹尸体。
• You are not supposed to gull your friends.你不应该欺骗你的朋友。

2 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

3 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

• She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her sweater. 她站起身掸掉了毛衣上的面包屑。
• Oh crumbs! Is that the time? 啊，天哪！都这会儿啦？

4 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

5 barometers   

气压计，晴雨表( barometer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Fixed cistern barometers are used as a standard for checking aneroid barometers. 固定槽式气压计可以作为标准件去检验无液气压计。
• Fixed cistern barometers are used as a standard for checking. 固定槽式气压计可以作为标准件去检验。

6 gauges   

n.规格( gauge的名词复数 )；厚度；宽度；标准尺寸v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的第三人称单数 )；估计；计量；划分

参考例句：

• A thermometer gauges the temperature. 温度计可测量温度。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fuel gauges dropped swiftly. 燃料表指针迅速下降。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 prophesy   

v.预言；预示

参考例句：

• He dares to prophesy what will happen in the future.他敢预言未来将发生什么事。
• I prophesy that he'll be back in the old job.我预言他将重操旧业。

8 prophesying   

v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. 凡男人祷告或是讲道（道或作说预言下同）若蒙着头，就是羞辱自己的头。 来自互联网
• Prophesying was the only human art that couldn't be improved by practice. 预言是唯一的一项无法经由练习而改善的人类技术。 来自互联网

9 tornadoes   

n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Tornadoes, severe earthquakes, and plagues create wide spread havoc. 龙卷风、大地震和瘟疫成普遍的毁坏。 来自互联网
• Meteorologists are at odds over the working of tornadoes. 气象学者对龙卷风的运动方式看法不一。 来自互联网

10 ruffling   

弄皱( ruffle的现在分词 )； 弄乱； 激怒； 扰乱

参考例句：

• A cool breeze brushed his face, ruffling his hair. 一阵凉风迎面拂来，吹乱了他的头发。
• "Indeed, they do not,'said Pitty, ruffling. "说真的，那倒不一定。" 皮蒂皱皱眉头，表示异议。

11 nautical   

adj.海上的，航海的，船员的

参考例句：

• A nautical mile is 1,852 meters.一海里等于1852米。
• It is 206 nautical miles from our present location.距离我们现在的位置有206海里。

12 plentiful   

adj.富裕的，丰富的

参考例句：

• Their family has a plentiful harvest this year.他们家今年又丰收了。
• Rainfall is plentiful in the area.这个地区雨量充足。

13 luncheon   

n.午宴，午餐，便宴

参考例句：

• We have luncheon at twelve o'clock.我们十二点钟用午餐。
• I have a luncheon engagement.我午饭有约。

14 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

15 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

16 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

17 squinting   

斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看

参考例句：

• "More company," he said, squinting in the sun. "那边来人了，"他在阳光中眨巴着眼睛说。
• Squinting against the morning sun, Faulcon examined the boy carefully. 对着早晨的太阳斜起眼睛，富尔康仔细地打量着那个年轻人。

18 mathematician   

n.数学家

参考例句：

• The man with his back to the camera is a mathematician.背对着照相机的人是位数学家。
• The mathematician analyzed his figures again.这位数学家再次分析研究了他的这些数字。

19 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

20 chili   

n.辣椒

参考例句：

• He helped himself to another two small spoonfuls of chili oil.他自己下手又加了两小勺辣椒油。
• It has chocolate,chili,and other spices.有巧克力粉，辣椒，和其他的调味品。

21 gales   

龙猫

参考例句：

• I could hear gales of laughter coming from downstairs. 我能听到来自楼下的阵阵笑声。
• This was greeted with gales of laughter from the audience. 观众对此报以阵阵笑声。

22 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

23 barge   

n.平底载货船，驳船

参考例句：

• The barge was loaded up with coal.那艘驳船装上了煤。
• Carrying goods by train costs nearly three times more than carrying them by barge.通过铁路运货的成本比驳船运货成本高出近3倍。