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  3. THE TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION1 By the close of the eighteent

THE TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION1 By the close of the eighteent

游客2024-01-04  42
问题                  THE TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION
1   By the close of the eighteenth century, the outlines of a world economy were clearly visible．Centered in Western Europe, it included Russia, India, the East Indies, the Middle East, northern and western Africa, and the Americas．Trade had increased greatly and shipping had grown in volume and speed, connecting the markets of the world more closely than ever before．The world market, however, was confined to the coasts and along rivers, and its effects were rarely felt a hundred miles inland．The expansion of economic activity into the interior, and its spread throughout China, Japan, Oceania, and Africa, was a major development of the nineteenth century．It was largely accomplished through a revolution in transportation, particularly the development of the steamship, canals, and railroads．
2   Since the fifteenth century, the wooden sailing ship had been the main instrument of European economic and political expansion．Sailing ships constantly grew in carrying capacity and speed with improvements in design, and they were built of easily available materials．The age of sailing ships reached its zenith in the middle of the nineteenth century, the era of the great ocean-plying clippers that carried the majority of international trade．
3   Before 1850, the bulk of internal trade was carried by water．In Western Europe, there had been several attempts to supplement the excellent river network with canals．However, it was the demands of the Industrial Revolution, particularly the need to transport huge quantities of coal, that stimulated large-scale canal building in the years 1760-1850, first in Britain and then in Western Europe and the United States．The introduction of steamboats gave an additional impetus to river navigation and canal construction．The steamship rose in stature in the 1870s, when technical progress reduced the amount of coal the steam engine consumed．Technical innovation, along with the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, enabled the steamship to surpass the sailing ship as the chief instrument of international trade．
4   Methods of land transport continued to be slow, uncertain, and expensive until the boom in railroad construction at mid century．In 1840 there were 5,500 miles of rail track throughout the world; just twenty years later, there were 66,000 miles．Of these, 50 percent were in North America and 47 percent were in Europe．The rail lines built during that period served populated areas where considerable economic activity already existed, yet a global ideology of railroads gradually emerged: the belief that railroads could populate and bring wealth to undeveloped regions．
5   In Britain and the United States, private companies built hundreds of uncoordinated rail projects, but in continental Europe railroad construction became a concern of the state, which provided overall control and a large share of capital．Until 1914, the building of railroads remained the most important reason for the export of capital as well as the main method of developing new territories．British capital financed the majority of the railroads built in India, Canada, and Latin America．The U.S．transcontinental railroad played a key role in populating and developing huge tracts of land in North America, as did the Trans-Siberian Railway in Asia．
6   In the course of the nineteenth century, around 9 million square miles of land were settled in North and South America and Oceania．This was made possible by the decline in transportation costs, which greatly extended the area from which bulky products such as grains and minerals could be marketed．The introduction of refrigeration on railcars and steamers in the 1870s opened huge markets for meat, dairy products, and fruit in North America and Europe．The 1870s also saw the adoption of steel rails, electric signals, compressed-air brakes, and other inventions that made railroads a leading source of technical innovation in the nineteenth century．
7   In the world context, the rise of the railroad was inseparable from that of the steamship．The economic and geographic consequences of these two innovations complemented one another．Both had the effect of increasing the size of markets as well as the amount of economic activity worldwide.
Glossary：
   clipper：a sailing ship that was built for great speed [br] The word zenith in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to
选项 A、final goal
B、slow period
C、natural limit
D、high point
答案 D
解析 Zenith means high point in this context．Clues: ...the main instrument...; The age of sailing ships reached its zenith..．the era of the great ocean-plying clippers that carried the majority of international trade．( 1.4)
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