詹姆斯·瓦特

湖北省宜昌市第二十中学 袁芳供稿

James Watt was an English boy.He was clever and bright.He liked to ask questions and was always thinking hard.詹姆斯瓦特是一个英国小男孩。他聪明伶俐。他总是喜欢问问题，总是在思考。

One day,he was sitting in the room with his old grandmother.There he saw a kettle on the fire.It was rising and rising.And the lid was moving.一天，他和奶奶在家里。当时炉子上的水壶正烧着开水。水在往上冒，盖子也在动。

“Grandma,what’s in the kettle?”Little Watt asked.“奶奶，水壶里是什么啊？”小瓦特问道。

“Water,”his grandma answered.“水。”奶奶回答道。

“I know there’s something else.Look,it is pushing the lid up.”“我知道肯定有什么其他东西的。你瞧，它正把盖子掀起来呢。”

“Oh,that’s only steam.”“哦，那是水蒸气。”“How does the steam get under the lid?”“水蒸气怎么可以在盖子下面呢？”“It comes from the water.”“它是水里来的。”

“The steam must be very strong,”the boy said to himself.It can push things.If there is more water,the steam will be much stronger.“水蒸气肯定很厉害了，”小男孩想到。它居然可以把东西掀起。如果水更多，那么水蒸气肯定更厉害了。

Many many years later,James tried hard to make steam work for people.Finally he gave the world the first steam engine.His name lives forever.多年以后，瓦特努力尝试让蒸汽为人类服务。最后他研制了人类历史上第一台了蒸汽机。他的名字将永远被世人记住。

The word“horsepower”was first used two hundred years ago.Watt had made the world’s first widely used steam engine.He had no way of telling people exactly how powerful it was,for at that time there were no units for measuring power.马力是两百多年前第一次开始使用的。瓦特发明了世界上第一台蒸汽机。但是他找不到办法告诉大家它的力量有多大，因为当时没有什么单位可以用来测量力量的大小。

Watt decided to find out how much work one strong horse could do in one minute.He called that unit one horsepower.With this unit he could measure the work his steam engine could do.瓦特决定找到测量一匹马一分钟内所能做的功。他把这个单位称作马力。用这个单位他就可以测量他的蒸汽机的力量了。

He discovered that a horse could lift a 3300-pound weight 10 feet into the air in one minute.His engine could lift a 3300-pound weight 100 feet in one minute.他发现一匹马在一分钟内可以把3300磅重的物体举10英尺高。他的蒸汽机可以在一分钟内举起3300磅重的物体100英尺。

Because his engine did ten times as much work as the horse,Watt called it a ten horsepower engine.因为他的蒸汽机做的功是一匹马的十倍，瓦特把它称作十马力引擎。

Decide whether the following sentences are True(T)or False(F)according to the passage.

( )1.James Watt made the first kettle in the world.

( )2.He was always thinking hard and liked to ask questions.

( )3.He thought there must be people made the kettle rise.

( )4.He made up a unit of measurement based on the strength of a horse.

( )5.One horsepower would equal the work a horse could do in a minute.