您现在的位置: Language Tips> Audio & Video> Special Speed News  
   
 





 
Death Valley: a beautiful but dangerous place
[ 2009-08-26 17:24 ]

codebase="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=6,4,5,715"

standby="Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components...">

pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=windows&ampsbp=mediaplayer&ampar=media&ampsba=plugin&"

name="MediaPlayer" volume="80" autostart="0">

Download

In the summer, the sun heats the ground so that the temperature of the rocks and soil can be as high as 74 degrees Celsius.

VOICE ONE:

This is Phoebe Zimmerman.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today we visit one of America's great national parks. It is a place of strange and silent beauty. As beautiful as this place is, its name provides evidence of very real danger. Come with us as we visit Death Valley.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Death Valley: a beautiful but dangerous place

Death Valley is a land of beautiful yet dangerous extremes. There are mountains that reach more than 3000 meters into the sky. There is a place called Badwater that is the lowest area of land in the Western Hemisphere. If there were water there, it would be 86 meters below the level of the ocean.

Death Valley can be dangerously cold during the winter months. Storms in the mountains can produce sudden flooding on the floor of the Valley.

The air temperature during the summer has been as high as 57 degrees Celsius. 

The extreme heat of Death Valley has killed people in the past. It will continue to kill those who do not honor this extreme climate. Death Valley does not forgive those who are not careful.

VOICE TWO:

Death Valley: a beautiful but dangerous place

Death Valley is a good example of the violence of nature. It contains evidence of several ancient volcanoes that caused huge explosions.

Evidence of one of these explosions is called Ubehebe Crater. The explosion left a huge hole in the ground almost a kilometer and a half wide.

In many areas of Death Valley it is easy to see where the ground has been pushed up violently by movement deep in the Earth. This movement has created unusual and beautiful rock formations. Some are red. Others are dark brown, gray, yellow or black.

Other areas of rock look as if some huge creature violently broke and twisted the Earth to create unusual, sometimes frightening shapes.

In other parts of Death Valley there are lines in the rock that show clearly that this area was deep under an ocean for many thousands of years. Much of the Valley is flat and extremely dry. In fact, scientists believe it is the driest place in the United States. In some areas the ground is nothing but salt. Nothing grows in this salted ground.

VOICE ONE:

However, it would be wrong to think that nothing lives in Death Valley. The Valley is full of life. Wild flowers grow very quickly after a little rain. Some desert plants can send their roots down more than 18 meters to reach water deep in the ground.

Many kinds of birds live in Death Valley. So do mammals and reptiles. You might see the small dog-like animal called the coyote or wild sheep called bighorns. Other animals include the desert jackrabbit, the desert tortoise or turtle and a large reptile called a chuckwalla. Many kinds of snakes live in the Valley, including one called the sidewinder rattlesnake. It is an extremely poisonous snake with long sharp teeth called fangs.

Death Valley is a huge place. It extends more than 225 kilometers across the southern part of the state of California, and across the border with the state of Nevada. Death Valley is part of the Great Mojave Desert.

VOICE TWO:

The area was named by a woman in 1849. Thousands of people from other parts of the country traveled to the gold mining areas in California. They were in a hurry to get there before other people did.

Many people were not careful. They made bad choices or wrong decisions. One group trying to reach California decided to take a path called the Old Spanish Trail. By December they had reached Death Valley. They did not have to survive the terrible heat of summer, but there was still an extreme lack of water. There were few plants for their work animals to eat.

The people could not find a pass through the tall mountains to the west of the Valley. Slowly, they began to suffer from a lack of food. To survive, they killed their work animals for food and began to walk out of the Valley. As they left, one woman looked back and said, "Good-bye, death valley." The name has never been changed.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Death Valley: a beautiful but dangerous place

Almost everyone who visits Death Valley visits a huge house called Scotty's Castle. The building design is Spanish, with high thick walls to provide protection from the fierce heat. The main building is very large. It was built in 1929 in one of the few areas of the Valley that has water.

The castle is named for Walter Scott, called Scotty by his friends. He was a gold miner. He told everyone that he built the house with money he made from his gold mine. Many people believed him. But it was not really the truth. Scotty was not a very honest man. Some years earlier, he had asked several people to invest in a gold mine he had in Death Valley. One of the men he asked to invest was a businessman from Chicago, Illinois named Albert Johnson.

Mr. Johnson invested in Scotty's mine. In 1905, he traveled to Death Valley to see the mine. Scotty put Mr. Johnson on a horse and took him far into the mountains. Many people believe that while they were on this trip, Scotty told Mr. Johnson the truth: There was no mine. There was no gold.

VOICE TWO:

Albert Johnson suffered from extremely poor health. He had been in a severe accident a few years before. Doctors did not believe he would live much longer. However, something happened on his trip with Scotty. When Albert Johnson returned from the mountains, he felt better than he had in several years. Perhaps he felt better because of the clean mountain air. Perhaps it was the good food Scotty cooked. Or it may have been the funny stories Scotty told that improved Mr. Johnson's health.

Whatever it was, Albert Johnson fell in love with Death Valley. He and Scotty became lifelong friends. Soon after, Albert Johnson began building a home on the western edge of Death Valley. He did not live there all the time. But Scotty did. And, he told everyone the huge house was his -- bought and paid for with the money from his gold mine. Scotty told everyone that Albert Johnson, his friend from Chicago, came to visit sometimes. Mr. Johnson never told anyone it was just a story made up by Death Valley Scotty.

VOICE ONE:

Albert Johnson lived another 30 years -- many more years than the doctors thought he would. Some years before he died, in 1948, Albert Johnson signed documents that said Walter Scott could live in the house until he died. Scotty died in 1954. He is buried on a small hill near the house.

In 1970, the National Park Service bought Scotty's Castle. It has since become one of the most popular areas to visit in Death Valley National Park.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

More than one million people visit Death Valley each year. Many people come for just a day. Buses bring visitors from the famous city of Las Vegas, Nevada. They ride around the park in their bus, visit several places and are back in their Las Vegas hotel by night. However, many other visitors stay in the park. The most popular area to stay in is Furnace Creek.

Furnace Creek is the largest area of human activity within Death Valley National Park. There is a hotel. There are also camping areas where people put up temporary cloth homes, called tents. Visitors who arrive in huge motor homes can also find a place to park their vehicles.

VOICE ONE:

Death Valley: a beautiful but dangerous place

The famous Furnace Creek Inn is a beautiful hotel that was built of stone more than 75 years ago. The inn is built on a low hill. The main public room in the hotel has large windows that look far out over Death Valley. Hotel guests gather near these large windows in the evening to watch the sun make long shadows on the floor of the Valley and on the far mountains.

This beautiful image seems to change each minute. The sun slowly turns the Valley a gold color that deepens to a soft brown, then changes to a dark red. As night comes, the mountains turn a dark purple color, then black.

Usually, visitors are very quiet when this event takes place. A few try to photograph it. But the Valley is too huge to capture in a photograph. Most visitors watch this natural beauty and leave with only the memory of sunset at beautiful Death Valley National Park.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Paul Thompson and produced by Caty Weaver. Our Studio engineer was Marx Karen. This is Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Phoebe Zimmerman. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS, a program in Special English on the Voice of America.

coyote: a small wolflike carnivorous animal native to western North America and found in many other regions of the continent 郊狼

bighorn: a wild sheep of the mountains of western North America, the male of which has massive curved horns 大角羊

jackrabbit: large, long-eared, long-legged hare of western North America(北美西部产)长耳大野兔

chuckwalla: a herbivorous lizard that lives among rocks in the arid parts of southwestern United States and Mexico (产于墨西哥及美国的)可供食用的大蜥蜴

sidewinder rattlesnake: a species of rattlesnake 一种小响尾蛇

fang: a snake's poison-injecting tooth 毒牙

Related stories:

Visiting seven of America's natural wonders

Hoover Dam, finished in 1936, is still a hugely interesting place

Visiting endangered places around the world

Visiting four national parks in western US

(Source: VOA 英语点津编辑)

英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883631联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。
相关文章 Related Story
 
 
 
本频道最新推荐
 
美国:休斯顿学校禁发“色情短信”
群众欢庆游行 mass pageant
It rhymes this time: Slang used at London ATMs
Chinese Valentine's Day(七巧节)
“投机倒把”怎么说
翻吧推荐
 
论坛热贴
 
晒晒小D机器人暴强的翻译
美国校园最in俗语大全
试译河东狮吼的经典台词
50个技巧改变你的2009
盂蘭節怎么翻译?