陳蕙雅思教材 - 雅思閱讀精選 (The Origin of Refrigerators)

The Origin of Refrigerators

By the mid-nineteenthcentury, the term"icebox"had entered the American

language, but ice wasstill only     beginning to affect thediet of ordinary

citizens in the UnitedStates. The ice trade grew with the growth of  

cities. Ice was used  in hotels, taverns,  and hospitals, and  by some

forward-looking   city dealers  in  fresh  meat,     fresh  fish, and  

butter.   After the  Civil   War

(1861-1865), as ice wasused to refrigerate freight cars, it also came           into

household use. Evenbefore 1880, half the ice sold in New York,

Philadelphia, andBaltimore, and one-third of    that soldin Boston and

Chicago, went to familiesfor their own use. This had become possible

because a new         household convenience,  the icebox, a precursor of  the

modern refrigerator,had  been invented.

Making an efficienticebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the

early nineteenth century,the knowledge  of the physics of heat,which was

essential to a science ofrefrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense

notion that the best icebox was one that prevented theice from melting was

of course mistaken, forit was the melting of     the ice thatperformed the

cooling. Nevertheless,early efforts to economize ice included wrapping the

ice in  blankets, which kept

the ice from doing itsjob. Not until near the end of the nineteenth

century did inventors         achieve the delicate balance ofinsulation and

circulation needed for anefficient icebox.

But as early as 1803, aningenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been

on the right track. Heowned a farm        about twenty milesoutside the city of

Washington, for which thevillage of Georgetown was the market center. When    

he used an icebox of hisown design to transport his butter to market, he

found that customerswould pass up the rapidly melting stuff inthe tubs of

his competitors to pay apremium price for his butter, still fresh and hard

in neat, one-poundbricks. One advantage of his icebox, more explained, was

that farmers would nolonger have to      travel to market atnight in order to

keep their produce cool.

冰箱的由來

直到 19 世紀中期，"冰箱"這個名詞才進入了美國語言，但冰僅僅只是開始影響美國普 通市民的飲食。  冰的買賣隨著城市的發展而發展。  

冰被用在旅館、酒館、醫院以及被一些 有眼光的城市商人用於肉、魚和黃油的保鮮。  內戰(1861-1865)之後，冰被用於冷藏貨車， 同時也進入了民用。

甚至在 1880 年前，半數在紐約、費城和巴爾的摩銷售的冰，三分之一

在波士頓和芝加哥銷售的冰進入家庭使用，因為一種新的家庭設備，冰箱，即現代冰箱的前 身，被發明了。  製造一台有效率的冰箱不像我們想像的那麼簡單。  

19  世紀早期，關於對 冷藏科學至關重要的熱物理知識是很淺陋的。  認為最好的冰箱應該防止冰的融化這樣一個

普遍的觀點顯然是錯誤的，因為正是冰的融化起了製冷作用。  早期為節省冰的努力，包括 用毯子把冰包起來，使得冰不能發揮它的作用。 直到近 19

世紀末，發明家們才成功地找到 有效率的冰箱所需要的精確的隔熱和迴圈的精確平衡。 但早在 1803 年，一位有發明天才的

馬里蘭農場主，湯瑪斯·莫爾，找到了正確方法。  他擁有一個農場，離華盛頓約 20 英里， 那裡的喬治鎮村莊是集市中心。  

當他用自己設計的冰箱運送黃油去市場時，他發現顧客們 會走過裝在競爭者桶裡那些迅速融化的黃油而給他比市價更高的價格買他仍然新鮮堅硬，整

齊地切成一磅一塊的黃油。  莫爾說他的冰箱的一個好處是使得農民們不必在夜裡上路去市 場以保持他們產品的低溫。