英国学生科学读本 Lesson 37 关于便士(1)
第37课 关于便士
When I was a little boy, pennies, and halfpennies, and farthings were made of pure copper. But copper is too soft a metal to stand the rubbing which coins get. So these old pennies soon became so smooth that one could not tell "head"from "tail, " or indeed see any letters on the pennies at all.
我还是个小男孩的时候， 英国的便士、半便士、四分之一便士硬币， 都是纯铜做的。可是纯铜这种金属太软， 硬币在使用中磨得太厉害， 纯铜经不起这种摩擦。所以， 这些老硬币很快就会磨得太光， 连正反面都看不出来， 便士上的字母更是磨得一个也看不见了。
By mixing with the copper a little of each of the two other metals known as zinc and tin, we get an alloy called bronze. Any mixture of two or more metals is named an alloy. Bronze is much harder than the copper alone, or the zinc alone, or the tin alone.
有两种金属名叫“锌”和“锡”， 如果在铜里， 把这两种金属中的一种， 掺一点儿进去， 我们就得到了一种叫做“青铜”的合金。合金， 就是两种或者更多种金属的混合物， 青铜比单独的铜、单独的锌、单独的锡都硬得多。
The melted bronze is poured into moulds, and is thus cast into bars about a foot long. Next, each of these bars is rolled out between steel rollers, and made into a sheet of metal of the thickness of a penny.
青铜熔化之后， 倒进模具里面， 铸成大约一英尺长的青铜条。然后， 把这些青铜条放在钢制的滚筒之间， 压成一便士那么厚的金属板。
A machine then cuts the sheet of bronze into round pieces, called blanks, each being just the size of a penny.Then each blank has its edge thickened by another machine. The thickened edge keeps the letters on the coin from being worn off.
然后， 一台机器把青铜板切成圆形的小块， 这些小块叫做“坯饼”， 每一个坯饼的尺寸都和一个硬币的尺寸相当。然后， 每一个坯饼的边缘， 再用另一台机器加厚。加厚的边缘， 可以防止硬币上的字母磨掉。
But now the letters and the figures must be put on.
但是， 现在就必须往硬币上印字母和数字了!
