本文选自《经济学人》11月28日刊文章。这篇文章是“Fathoms”这本书的介绍，这本书描述地球最大的生物——鲸鱼的探索。鲸鱼是海洋霸主，对于海洋生物来说，它可以供养一个生态系统，是天赐之物，但是由于人类大量捕杀、气候变化导致的海水变暖、海水酸化、海洋污染等原因，鲸鱼的生存面临残酷的威胁。通过这篇文章，你可以了解这个地球上最古老、也是最庞大的生物。
选文精讲
- thar she blows：这是一个俚语，当捕鲸人发现鲸鱼喷出的水柱时，会说“Thar she blows”，意思是“看，鲸鱼喷出的水柱，那里一定有鲸鱼”，"thar"是“there”的古体形式。
An elegy for the world’s biggest creatures
An encounter with a dying whale on a beach in Perth set off Rebecca Giggs’s inquiry在珀斯的海滩上遇到的一头垂死鲸鱼开启了丽贝卡·吉格斯的调查Fathoms. By Rebecca Giggs.Simon & Schuster; 352 pages; $27. Scribe; £20.TWO YEARS ago your reviewer stood in an office overlooking the Pacific Ocean at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California. Outside, giant pelicans sliced through the sea air. Inside, the walls and windows were shaken by a below-bass note that boomed out of huge speakers. This, said John Ryan, an oceanographer, was the moan of a humpback whale, the darling of whale-watchers, known for its impressive fin- and tail-slapping displays and haunting “song”. Most recordings of humpbacks seem almost violin-like, but this was much, much deeper—barely a sound, more a vibration that was felt rather than heard.
- slice through: 划过、割穿；slice through seawater：划过海面
两年前，在加州莫斯兰丁的蒙特雷湾水族馆研究所，笔者站在一间办公室里俯瞰太平洋。外面，巨大的鹈鹕划过海面，室内，墙和窗户都被巨大扩音器传出的低沉声音震动。海洋学家约翰·瑞恩说，这是座头鲸发出的呻吟声。座头鲸是捕鲸者的宠儿，以其迷人的鱼鳍、鱼尾拍击表演以及令人难忘的“歌声”而闻名。大部分座头鲸的录音听起来和小提琴差不多，但这个声音要深沉得多——几乎不像是声音，它更偏向是一种能感觉到的震动，而非听到的声音。In the opening scene of “Fathoms”, Rebecca Giggs describes a very different kind of encounter with a humpback: on a beach in Perth, Australia, where a young giant had found itself stranded. For three days, she witnessed its enormous mass crushing its vital organs; the blubber that evolved over millions of years to keep the species alive in the frigid abyss now had the opposite effect. The humpback, she says, “was boiling alive in the kettle of itself”.
在《深度》的开篇，丽贝卡·吉格斯描述了她与一头座头鲸的另类相遇：一个年轻座头鲸被困在澳大利亚珀斯海滩上，整整三天，她目睹了它巨大的身躯挤压着它的重要器官，历经数百万年的进化，让鲸鱼能在寒冷的深海中生存的鲸脂，现在却起到了反作用。她说，这头座头鲸像是“在它自己的水壶里被活生生的煮了”。
