考研优美英语作文的背诵030

　　fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War, as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it alsocame into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York,Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston andChicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because anew household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.

　　Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as wemight now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of thephysics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, wasrudimentary. The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one thatprevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the meltingof the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts toeconomize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept　the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenthcentury did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation andcirculation needed for an efficient icebox.

　　But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer,Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twentymiles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown wasthe market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport hisbutter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidlymelting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for hisbutter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of hisicebox, more explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel tomarket at night in order to keep their produce cool.

　　全文翻译：冰箱的由来

　　直到 19 世纪中期，冰箱这个名词才进入了美国语言，但冰仅仅只是开始影响美国普 通市民的饮食。冰的买卖随着城市的发展而发展。 冰被用在旅馆、酒馆、医院以及被一些 有眼光的城市商人用于肉、鱼和黄油的保鲜。 内战之后，冰被用于冷藏货车， 同时也进入了民用。 甚至在 1880 年前，半数在纽约、费城和巴尔的摩销售的冰，三分之一在波士顿和芝加哥销售的冰进入家庭使用，因为一种新的家庭设备，冰箱，即现代冰箱的前身，被发明了。 制造一台有效率的冰箱不像我们想象的那么简单。19 世纪早期，关于对 冷藏科学至关重要的热物理知识是很浅陋的。 认为最好的冰箱应该防止冰的融化这样一个普遍的观点显然是错误的，因为正是冰的融化起了制冷作用。 早期为节省冰的努力，包括 用毯子把冰包起来，使得冰不能发挥它的作用。直到近 19 世纪末，发明家们才成功地找到 有效率的冰箱所需要的精确的隔热和循环的精确平衡。 但早在 1803 年，一位有发明天才的 马里兰农场主，托马斯莫尔，找到了正确方法。 他拥有一个农场，离华盛顿约 20 英里， 那里的乔治镇村庄是集市中心。

　　当他用自己设计的冰箱运送黄油去市场时，他发现顾客们 会走过装在竞争者桶里那些迅速融化的黄油而给他比市价更高的价格买他仍然新鲜坚硬，整 齐地切成一磅一块的黄油。 莫尔说他的冰箱的一个好处是使得农民们不必在夜里上路去市 场以保持他们产品的低温。