The first calender 最早的日曆
Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times. They will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates. What is more, they will not have to rely solely on the written word. Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMS are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have. They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action. But the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task. He has to deduce what he can from the few scanty clues available. Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man.
Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons. Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.
Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths. The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age which began about 35,000 BC and ended about 10,000 BC By correlating markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code. They have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon. It is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar. It has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression. They had a definite meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing. It is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them. It seems that man was making a real effort to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier than has been supposed.
未來的歷史學家在寫我們這一段歷史的時候會別具一格。對於逐漸積累起來的龐大材料，他們幾乎不知道選取哪些好，而且，也不必完全依賴文字材料。電影、錄像、光盤和光盤驅動器只是能為他們提供令人眼花繚亂的大量信息的幾種手段。他們能夠身臨其境般地觀看我們做事，傾聽我們講話。但是，歷史學家企圖重現遙遠的過去可是一項艱鉅的任務，他們必鬚根據現有的不充分的線索進行推理。即使看起來微不足道的遺物，也可能揭示人類早期歷史的一些有趣的內容。
歷史學家迄今認為日曆是隨農業的問世而出現的，因為當時人們面臨著了解四季的實際需要，但近期科學研究發現，好像這種假設是不正確的。
長期以來，歷史學家一直對雕刻在牆壁上、骨頭上、古代長毛象的象牙上的點、線和形形色色的符號感到困惑不解。這些痕跡是游牧人留下的，他們生活在從公元前約35，000年到公元前10，000年的冰川期的末期，以狩獵、捕魚為生。歷史學家通過把世界各地留下的這種痕跡放在一起研究，終於弄懂了這種費解的代碼。他們發現代碼與晝夜更迭和月亮圓缺有關，事實上是一種最原始的日曆。大家早就知道，畫在牆上的狩獵圖景並不是單純的藝術表現形式，它們有著一定的含義，因為它們已接近古代人的文字形式。有時，這種圖畫與牆壁上的刻痕共存，它們之間可能有一定的聯繫。看來人類早就致力於探索四季變遷了，比人們想像的要早20,000年。
Who's who 真假難辨
It has never been explained why university students seem to enjoy practical jokes more than anyone else. Students specialize in a particular type of practical joke: the hoax. Inviting the fire-brigade to put out a non-existent fire is a crude form of deception which no self-respecting student would ever indulge in. Students often create amusing situations which are funny to everyone except the victims.
When a student recently saw two workmen using a pneumatic drill outside his university, he immediately telephoned the police and informed them that two students dressed up as workmen were tearing up the road with a pneumatic drill. As soon as he had hung up, he went over to the workmen and told them that if a policeman ordered them to go away, they were not to take him seriously. He added that a student had dressed up as a policeman and was playing all sorts of silly jokes on people. Both the police and the workmen were grateful to the student for this piece of advance information.
The student hid in an archway nearby where he could watch and hear everything that went on. Sure enough, a policeman arrived on the scene and politely asked the workmen to go away. When he received a very rude reply from one of the workmen , he threatened to remove them by force. The workmen told him to do as he pleased and the policeman telephoned for help. Shortly afterwards, four more policemen arrived and remonstrated with the workmen. As the men refused to stop working, the police attempted to seize the pneumatic drill. The workmen struggled fiercely and one of them lost his temper. He threatened to call the police. At this, the police pointed out ironically that this would hardly be necessary as the men were already under arrest. Pretending to speak seriously, one of the workmen asked if he might make a telephone call before being taken to the station. Permission was granted and a policeman accompanied him to a pay phone
. Only when he saw that the man was actually telephoning the police did he realize that they had all been the victims of a hoax.
誰也弄不清為什麼大學生好像比任何人都更喜歡惡作劇。大學生擅長一種特殊的惡作劇——戲弄人。請消防隊來撲滅一場根本沒有的大火是一種低級騙局，有自尊心的大學生決不會去做。大學生們常常做的是製造一種可笑的局面，除了受害者大家都覺得非常滑稽。
最近有個學生看見兩個工人在大學校門外用風鑽幹活，馬上打電話報告警察，說有兩個學生裝扮成工人，正在用風鑽破壞路面。掛上電話後，他又馬上來到工人那兒，告訴他們若有個警察來讓他們走開，不要把他當回事；還對工人說，有個學生常裝扮成警察無聊地同別人開玩笑。警察與工人都對那個學生事先通報情況表示感謝。
那學生躲在附近一拱形門廊裡，在那兒可以看見、聽到現場發生的一切。果然，警察來了，有禮貌地請工人離開此地；但其中一個工人粗魯地回了幾句。於是警察威脅要強行使他們離開。工人說，悉聽尊便。警察去打電話叫人。一會兒工夫，又來了4個警察，規勸工人離開。由於工人拒絕停下手中的活，警察想奪風鑽。兩個工人奮力抗爭，其中一個發了火，威脅說要去叫警察。警察聽後譏諷地說，這大可不必，因為他倆已被逮捕了。其中一個工人裝模作樣地問道，在被帶往警察局之前，是否可以打一個電話。警察同意了，陪他來到一個投幣電話前。當他看到那個工人真的是給警察掛電話，才恍然大悟，原來他們都成了一場騙局的受害者。
