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Niagara Falls-Something Completely New
尼亚加拉瀑布-完全不同的全新景观
Niagara Falls has become a tired old tourist sight. But if you look it over in an airplane, it becomes something completely new. You realize that it is not tired; only our way of looking at it is tired.
尼亚加拉大瀑布已成为了老掉牙的旅游景点。但是，如果你从飞机上鸟瞰的话，它就完全换了副模样。你会意识到，老掉牙的并不是尼亚加拉，而是我们观赏它的方法。
Most visitors go as close to the falls as possible, and watch the waters thundering down. It is fascinating, in a stupefying way. You stand there, hypnotized by the sheer force, the untiring action that goes on and on. But afterward you have a feeling - "So what, really? The water comes to the cliff and, naturally, it falls down."
大部分游客总是尽可能靠近瀑布，看着水流轰鸣而下。这让人神魂颠倒，呆若木鸡。游客站在那里，被奔腾不息的激流及其强大的力量所折服。但此后你会有这样的感觉"那又怎么样？水流到了悬崖边，当然要往下淌落了。"
But at altitude you see it all at once. You see Lake Ontario on one side and Lake Erie on the other, and linking them the 34-mile Niagara River. Then, coming down lower, you see the falls themselves, along a front almost a mile wide, plunges over a 182-foot cliff and flows off through a deep, narrow gorge. And right away, with a flash of understanding, you see the main fact about the Niagara Falls. The falls are moving, the seven-mile-long gorge is merely the track the falls have made as they move along. This instantly reverses all your ideas. On the ground it seemed that the water fell because there was this low place for it to fall into the gorge. Now you see it is the other way round. The falls are the cause, and the gorge is the result. Niagara Gorge looks like the track eaten into an apple by a worm.
但在高空你会马上看个一清二楚。你看到瀑布的一边是安大略湖，另一边是伊利湖，把这两个源连接起来的是34英里长的尼亚加拉河。当飞机降低高度时，你会看到瀑布本身，沿着湖滨约有1英里宽的人行道，水从182英尺高的悬崖直冲下来，然后流入既深又窄的峡谷。你会顿悟你已看到了尼亚加拉瀑布的真面目：瀑布在运动着，而7英里长的峡谷只是瀑布在运动时冲出来的轨迹。这一事实马上使你的想法完全改变。从地面上看，水往下冲入峡谷的原因似乎是因为下面有低地。而现在你会明白，事实正好相反：瀑布是起因，而峡谷才是结果。尼亚加拉峡谷看上去像是虫子在苹果上咬出来的斑痕。
Niagara differs from the waterfalls you find in mountains, where a thin stream of water comes down a mountainside, half-flying. Some of them are much higher than Niagara, and perhaps more beautiful, but they lack mass and cutting power. Niagara belongs to the heavyweights - where a whole solid river plunges bodily over a cliff.
尼亚加拉瀑布与人们在山上看到的瀑布有所不同。在山上看到的瀑布是一条飞下山腰的细流；有的高于尼亚加拉瀑布，也许比它美丽，但它们却没有尼亚加拉瀑布的那种气势和爆发力。尼亚加拉瀑布属于重量级--一股巨流全部从悬崖上冲泻下来。
The real sight from above is the gigantic movement of the falls themselves, digging the gorge.
从上往下看到的现实景像是瀑布自身的强烈运动在凿峡谷。
The falls are still moving today. However, our century has tamed it a bit. A lot of water that used to plunge down now goes through the electric power stations, both American and Canadian.
今天，瀑布依然一泻千里。不过，本世纪人们开始利用它了。过去常常向下冲击的河流，现在都流过美国和加拿大的发电站。
