65 The Leaning Tower of Pisa

名称：65 The Leaning Tower of Pisa
内容简介：
晨读英语美文 文化百科
[00:13.48]The Dear Old Lady—
[00:16.67]that is what the people of Pisa call the tower
[00:19.73]—needs help.
[00:24.66]Three million people visit Pisa each year.
[00:26.29]That's a lot of people.
[00:28.25]Why do they come to this town
[00:30.21]in Italy to see a tower?
[00:33.17]A look at the picture will tell you why.
[00:35.79]The crazy tower leans!
[00:37.79]It is known to us all
[00:40.08]as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
[00:44.23]The tower looks as if it might fall at any time.
[00:44.48]In fact, some visitors stop at the tower
[00:47.76]just long enough to take a picture.
[00:50.17]Then they hurry away.
[00:52.14]Other visitors climb the 294 steps
[00:55.96]to the top and come down,
[00:58.28]feeling like heroes.
[01:00.36]Engineers say that the visitors are safe
[01:02.99]—at least for a while.
[01:05.17]But the tower does lean.
[01:07.25]It leans aside 14 feet 10 inches
[01:11.12]at the present time.
[01:12.76]The tower has leaned for 800 years.
[01:16.26]And every year it leans a big more.
[01:19.65]If this keeps on,
[01:21.51]the tower will fall.
[01:23.16]You may wonder what makes the tower lean.
[01:26.33]If you look at the picture,
[01:28.41]you will see that one side of the tower
[01:30.84]is deeper in the earth than the other.
[01:33.36]The foundation on which the tower rests
[01:36.65]has sunk into the soil on the leaning side.
[01:39.71]Why does this happen?
[01:41.68]Pisa's tower weighs 14 500 tons.
[01:46.49]The soil of the town is a mixture of a clay
[01:50.11]and sand and water.
[01:51.64]A heavy tower built on soil like this
[01:54.82]must have a very strong foundation.
[01:57.11]The leaning Tower's foundation is just not deep
[02:01.05]or wide enough for the tower standing on it.
[02:04.00]Can nothing be done about the tower?
[02:06.96]No, Italian engineers have several plans.
[02:11.34]They don't want to make the tower straight—
[02:14.07]just keep it from leaning any further.
[02:17.35]So all the plans call for a new foundation
[02:20.82]that won't sink.
[02:22.24]But a new foundation can't be built
[02:25.41]while the tower is resting on the old one.
[02:28.15]The tower must be raised with jacks.
[02:32.53]They would be like jacks we use to raise cars
[02:36.46]when changing a tyre.
[02:38.21]Only these jacks would be giant ones.
[02:41.16]One plan calls for 15 of them
[02:44.77]to be placed under the tower.
[02:46.96]Each of the giant jacks would be on its own foundation.
[02:50.90]And each of them could lift 1 000 tons.
[02:54.50]The 15 jacks would raise the 14 500 ton tower
[03:00.08]and hold it up while the new foundation is being built.
[03:04.24]The Italian engineers are searching for the best plan
[03:08.42]to save the tower.
[03:09.74]They know that any plan takes a lot of money.
[03:13.02]They are trying to get the money
[03:15.32]from the Italian government.
[03:16.85]But many Italians refuse to believe
[03:20.35]that the old tower is in danger.
[03:22.97]“It leans and leans and leans,
[03:26.03]”they say,“But it will never fall down.”