十張改變你對尺寸認知的歷史照片(上)

It's easy to believe that we live in the age of the bigger and better, and in many cases, that's true. But one thing you can't discount is history's ability to overwhelm us when we least expect it. From the manmade to the natural, these photos capture the essence of what it means to feel insignificant.

人們普遍認爲，我們生活在一個更大、更好的時代,多數情況下也確實如此。但不得不承認的是，歷史上也有許許多多的東西總在不經意間讓我們大跌眼鏡、歎爲觀止，無論是"人造"的還是"純天然"的，以下的照片都足以讓我們感受到自己的微不足道。

. Bahnson's Lily Pads

10.班森博士的睡蓮葉子

Dr. George Frederic Bahnson was a man of many talents. He was one of the most acclaimed medical diagnosticians in his time, he served as a Union sharpshooter in the Civil War, and he grew the biggest lily pads the US had ever seen.

喬治·弗雷德裏克·班森博士是一個集衆多才能於一身的人。他是當時最負盛名的內科醫生，也曾作爲聯盟神槍手參加了美國內戰。此外，他還成功培育出了當時美國史上最大的睡蓮。

The photo above is a surreal endorsement for the potential of any man with a modest green thumb and a teaspoonful of insanity. In his years after the war, Bahnson and his wife worked tirelessly to cultivate the Victoria Regal water lily, an Amazonian species known to reach widths of over 2.5 meters (8 ft) in the wild. The Bahnson duo became the first people to grow it in the US without the help of a greenhouse. The pond that housed this odd little piece of history was later drained to make way for the Salem College Fine Arts Center.

他謙遜有禮，極具潛力，在園藝方面技藝卓著，有時還被人誤以爲有"一絲精神錯亂"，但這幅看似奇怪的照片，恰恰是對他才能的極大認可。在戰爭結束後的那些年，班森和他的妻子不辭辛苦地致力於培育維多利亞大王蓮（又稱維多利亞亞馬遜睡蓮）。該睡蓮原產於南美洲亞馬遜河流域，野生的此種睡蓮直徑可超2.5米（8英尺），因而聞名於世。班森夫婦是在美國於非溫室條件下成功種植該睡蓮的先驅。不過，當年用於種植這一神奇之物的池塘後來被抽乾，並用於建造如今的薩利姆學院美術中心。

Antarctic Snow Cruiser

9.南極雪地巡航車

By the 1940s, Antarctic exploration mania was reaching a fever pitch. Fueled by the exploits of Shackleton, Falcon, and Charcot, the world watched with breath held and fingers tensed as each new team forged a path through the frozen southern wastes. In an effort to keep up with the spirit of discovery, new and better technologies were rolling off the assembly lines to help these heroic men better cope with the elements.

20世紀40年代，人們對於南極探險的狂熱近乎白熱化。而在沙克爾頓，法爾肯和沙可等先驅的推動下，一支又一支探險隊伍踏上了南極這片人跡罕至的凍土。每一次探險都牽動着全世界人民的心，人們不禁屏住呼吸、攥緊手指，密切注視着探險進程。多年來，爲了努力配得上人們的探索精神，科學家們研發出了許多更新、更好的技術，以幫助那些勇者更好地應對南極探索中的各種困難。

One of these innovations was the Antarctic Snow Cruiser. Designed by Dr. Thomas C. Poulter, an Antarctic veteran with the lung damage to prove it, the Cruiser was supposed to be the epitome of exploration technology. It had specially designed treadless tires that were supposed to be able to bridge the wide crevasses that had prevented past explorers from using vehicles. After months of development, the Cruiser touched Antarctic ice for the first time on January 15, 1940, at the Bay of Whales. For a brief and glorious moment, it perched on the permafrost like a fierce metal penguin, and then the massive tires broke through the snow and spun out. The crew dug it out, only to have the engines overheat a few hundred meters farther in. Thus began the most frustrating months humans have ever experienced in tually, the expedition decided to simply cover the Snow Cruiser with timber and use it as a glorified tent. It was abandoned when the team left Antarctica early the next year.

其中一個重大創新便是南極雪地巡航車。該巡航車由患有肺病的南極探險老將托馬斯·C·普爾特博士設計，作爲標誌着南極勘探技術實現新飛躍的里程碑，它當之無愧。它的輪胎被特地設計成無防滑紋式，以彌補過去因冰面縫隙過大造成的車輛無法跨越的難題。經過數月的研究改進，南極雪地巡航車於1940年1月15日在威爾士灣登陸，首次踏上了南極這片白雪皚皚的土地。有那麼短暫而輝煌的一刻，它像一隻兇猛的金屬企鵝棲息在這片永久凍土之上。隨後，巨大的輪胎破開層層積雪，卻不料深陷其中無法行進。探險隊員們將它從雪地中挖了出來，重新發動引擎，也不過是多行進了幾百米就再次罷工（還全是倒着開的）。至此，人類開始了在南極長達數月的、最爲艱難的探險之旅。最終，探險隊決定用木料簡單地覆蓋雪地巡航車並將其用作"榮耀帳篷"，供隊員們休憩。翌年年初，探險隊動身離開南極，雪地巡航車也隨之被遺棄在那兒。

ican Lobsters

8.美國龍蝦

The general consensus on lobsters is that they're almost too big to fit on a dinner plate but not quite. At an intellectual level, we realize that they get a lot bigger than the ones at the grocery store, but this photo hammers that understanding home with visceral enthusiasm. Although these aren't the largest lobsters on record—that distinction goes to a beast caught off Novia Scotia that weighed in at 20 kilograms (44 lb)—each of their claws is bigger than the boy's torso, giving yet another argument for staying out of New Jersey's water.

人們普遍認爲龍蝦最大能大到連一個餐盤都裝不下，但事實遠非如此。從觀念層面上來看，人們都知道它們比雜貨鋪裏賣的龍蝦要更大，但是這張照片裏的龍蝦個頭徹底顛覆了人們的原有認知，因爲它實在太大了。儘管圖片中的龍蝦並不是記載中最大的（從新斯科舍外海捕撈上來的龍蝦都重達20公斤（44磅）），但它們的每隻爪螯都要比一個男孩的身體還大，這也就再次給出了它們避開新澤西州水域生活的理由——新澤西州水域較淺、缺氧，不適合此類龍蝦生存。

The American Northeast is no stranger to clawed beasts of the deep. The growth of the American lobster industry paralleled the advent of canning technology in North America, and by the middle of the 19th century, demand for lobsters was skyrocketing. Supply quickly rose to meet that demand to the point. The northeast got so inundated with lobster meat that it came to be considered a "poor man's food." That's obviously changed by now, although lobster fisheries the world over still pull in over 200,000 tons of this particular decapodian delicacy every year.

這些在水域深處生存的大龍蝦對美國東北部環境並不陌生。美國龍蝦業的發展與北美罐頭加工業的興起很是相似。在19世紀中期，人們對龍蝦的需求飛漲，供給迅速上升到需求的對應點。而東北部的龍蝦肉很快氾濫，因此被稱爲"窮人的食物"。雖然如今全世界的龍蝦養殖場每年仍能捕獲超過20萬噸的"美味佳餚"，但這種供大於求的情況已得到明顯改善。

Carving Of Rushmore

7.拉什莫爾山雕像

This photo from the construction of Mount Rushmore was taken in the late '30s, just a few years before the monument's completion in 1941. The project was absolutely immense in scope, especially considering that it was built on the heels of the Great Depression.

這張總統山的建造圖片拍攝於上世紀三十年代末，恰好就在1941年，即紀念碑竣工的前幾年。在當時經濟大蕭條的背景下，這個工程更是顯得空前巨大、史無前例。

Like ants on an action figure, workers spent 14 years clinging to the nostrils and eyebrows of America's greatest presidents. Using steel cables and massive winches housed in buildings at the top of the mountain, 30 men at any given time first blasted then carved the monument out of Rushmore's granite face. Dynamite charges carved out the features to within 8 centimeters (3 in), after which workers hand-carved the rest with what became known as the honeycomb method. Using jackhammers, workers bored a series of closely spaced holes, which were then knocked away with a chisel. The only person who died during the construction of Mount Rushmore was its architect, Gutzon Borglum, who died of natural causes six months before it was finished.

工人們在山體上動工，與龐大的山體相比，顯得那樣渺小，就像螞蟻爬在仿真人偶上一樣。他們花了14年的時間釘鑿出美國最偉大的總統們的鼻子和眉毛。工人們把鋼絲繩和巨大的絞車安置在山頂的建築物上，且在給定的時間內派出三十人先去爆破，然後再去把人像雕刻在拉什莫爾山的花崗岩巖體表面。工人們先用炸藥炸出8釐米（3英寸）左右的輪廓，之後再手工雕刻其餘部分，這就是爲大家熟知的蜂窩法（短柱式採礦法）——工人們先用手提鑽鑽出一系列的緊密細孔，然後再用鑿子敲開。在總統山的建造過程中，唯一死去的人是建築師格曾·博格勒姆，他在工程完工前六個月因自然原因死亡。

kage Of A Zeppelin

6.齊柏林飛艇遺骸

Thanks in part to the Hindenburg, the early, hydrogen-filled Zeppelins are now synonymous with flaming tragedy. In World War I, 84 Zeppelins were built for the German wartime effort. Sixty of them were destroyed, and about half of those losses weren't even from enemy fire—they were just accidents.

拜"興登堡號空難"所賜，早年間利用氫氣氣囊作爲動力飛行的齊柏林飛艇如今成爲了"墜毀悲劇"的代名詞。在第一次世界大戰中，德國共建造84艘齊柏林飛艇投入戰爭，最終損失了60艘，其中半數都毀於意外而非敵人的槍炮轟擊。

In the aftermath of the various bombing raids that never seemed to do much damage, European countrysides became impromptu grave sites for the burned-out carcasses of these massive airborne leviathans. The photo above was taken in Mison, France in 1918. Our closest modern equivalent to these large-scale wreckages would probably be underwater shipwrecks, but even those rarely come close to the size of the largest airships of the era.

以上這張照片於1918年攝於法國米鬆(Mison)。敵人的轟炸都沒給德軍造成多少損失，但這些空中的龐然大物倒被意外引起的大火燒了個一乾二淨，它們巨大的殘骸散落在歐洲鄉間的土地上，使這裏變成了飛艇的臨時"停屍場"。現如今，在外形大小上能與這些龐然大物比擬的，大概也就只有那些沉入海底的巨輪了，但如果拿它們同當年最大的齊柏林飛艇相比，這些"海上霸主"也會相形見絀。

編輯:橘子 來源:前十網