题目内容
Volcanoes
Geologists have been studying volcanoes for a long time. Though they have learned a great deal, they still have not discovered the causes of volcanic action. They know that the inside of the earth is very hot, but they are not sure exactly what causes the great heat. Some geologists have thought that the heat is caused by the great pressure of the earth's outer layers. Or the heat may be left from the time when the earth was formed. During the last sixty years scientists have learned about radium, uranium, thorium, and other radioactive elements. These give out heat all the time as the heat inside the earth is produced by radioactive elements.
Whatever the cause of the heat may be, we do know that the earth gets hotter the farther down we dig. In deep mines and oil wells the temperature rises about 1'F. for each 50 feet. At this rate the temperature 40 miles below the earth's surface would be over 4,000'F. This is much hotter than necessary to melt rock. However, the pressure of the rock above keeps most materials from melting at their usual melting points. Geologists believe that the rock deep in the earth may be plastic, or puttylike. In other words, the rock yields slowly to pressure but is not liquid. But if some change in the earth's crust releases the pressure, the rock melts. Then the hot, liquid rock can move up toward the surface.
When the melted rock works its way close to the earth's crust, a volcano may be formed. The melted rock often contains steam and other gases under great pressure. If the rock above gives way, the pressure is released. Then the sudden expansion of the gases causes explosions. These blow the melted rock into pieces of different sizes and shoot them high in the air. Here they cool and harden into volcanic ash and cinders. Some of the material falls around the hole made in the earth's surface. The melted rock may keep on rising and pour out as lava. In this way, volcanic ash, cinders, and lava build up the cone-shaped mountains that we call volcanoes.
The subject of this passage is the ______.
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Longitude and Latitude
The meridians of longitude are imaginary great circles drawn from pole to pole around the earth. By international agreement, the meridian of longitude passing through Greenwich, England, is numbered zero. The earth is divided into 360 degrees, and the meridians are numbered east and west from Greenwich. There are 180 degrees of longitude east of Greenwich and 180 degrees in the westerly direction. New York has a longitude of 74 degrees west (74'W.) which means that it lies on the 74th meridian west of Greenwich.
Since the sun appears to travel around the earth in 24 hours, it will move 360/24 or 15 degrees in one hour. This reasoning can be used by navigators to determine their longitude. Imagine that we have set sail from Greenwich, England, after having set a very accurate clock, or chronometer, to the local Greenwich time. As we travel westward toward New York, we notice that the sun is going "slower" than our chronometer. At the time that our timepiece reads 12 o'clock, the sun has not quite reached the zenith. As a matter of fact, when our clock reads noon, what it really means is that it's noon in Greenwich, England. Our clock continues to tell us the time, not at our present location, but at Greenwich. Let us wait until the sun is directly overhead (noon at our location) and then read the time on our clock. Suppose it reads 1 o'clock. This means that there is one hours difference in time between our longitude and that of Greenwich. As we mentioned earlier, this corresponds to exactly 15 degrees of longitude, so our longitude must be 15' W. The world is divided into 24 time zones, and each zone corresponds to 15 degrees of longitude. New York is approximately 5 time zones west of Greenwich, so the time difference must be about 5 hours. By maintaining chronometers on Greenwich time, ships can determine their longitude on any sunny day by merely noting the difference in hours between Greenwich time and local sun time and multiplying this difference by 15 degrees.
Of course, longitude gives only half of the information needed to determine our precise location. We must also know our latitude, which tells us how far we are north or south of the Equator. The Equator is the zero line for the measurement of latitude. Circles are drawn parallel to the Equator to indicate other values of latitude. There are 90 degrees of south latitude.
In the Northern Hemisphere there is a star called Polaris almost directly over the North Pole. This makes it possible to determine the latitude of a given point by setting our sextant(六分仪) to measure the angle between Polaris, the North Star, and the horizon. Mathematicians tell us that this angle is equal to the latitude at the point in question.
To get idea of our location, therefore, we need to know local time, Greenwich time, and the angle between Polaris and the horizon.
In order to establish the "fix" or precise location of a ship, the navigator must know ______.
Why did the protest take place？
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