工业革命前的英格兰

The country was a place where men worked from dawn to dark , and the labourer lived not in the sun , but in poverty and darkness. What aids there were to lighten labour were immemorial , like the mill, which was already ancient in Chaucer’s time. The Industrial Revolution began with such machines ; the millwrights were the engineers of coming age . James Brindley of Staffordshire started his self-made career in 1733 by working at mill wheels , at the age of seventeen , having been poor in a village.
这是一个人民从白天劳作到黑夜的国家，这里的工人工人生活在不见天日的贫穷和黑暗之中。帮助人们生产的东西非常的古老，比如磨坊，它可以追溯到乔叟时代。工业革命就是发展于这种机器。机械装配工人是这个即将到来的时代的工程师。斯塔福德郡的詹姆斯布兰迪出生于一个贫苦的农村家庭；1733年，他十七岁，詹姆斯布兰迪开始了他改进磨坊齿轮的自我奋斗生涯。

Brindley’s improvements were practical : to sharpen and step up the performance of the water level as a machine . It was the first multi-purpose machine for the new industries . Brindley worked , for example ,to improve the grinding of flints , which were used in the rising pottery industry.
布兰迪的改进是有实际意义的：他改进并加强了水轮的机械功能。 对于新产业来讲，这是第一部多功能的机器。例如，布兰迪致力于改进燧石的研磨效能，这种石头在新兴产业中被广泛运用。

Yet there was a bigger movement in the air by 1750. Water had become the engineers’ element . and men like Brindley were possessed by it . Water was gushing and fanning out all over the countryside . It was not simply a source of power , it was a new wave of movement . James Brindley was a pioneer in the art of building canals or , as it was then called , ‘navigation’ .

然而，到了1750年，一场更大的运动正在酝酿当中。水变成了工程师们的利器。 像布兰迪这样的人都为它着迷。 水在乡村到处奔流涌动着， 它不仅是一种动力来源，它还是一种新的运动。 詹姆斯布兰迪是建造运河领域的先驱，在当时，他的作品被叫做’navigaton’
in the air:在酝酿当中 **gushing 美: ['ɡʌʃɪŋ] 迸出的；涌出的；喷涌 fan：风扇激起。
Brindley had begun on his own account ,out of interest , to survey the waterways that he travelled as he went about his engineering projects for mills and mines . The Duke of Bridgewater then got him to build a canal to carry coal from the Duke’s pits at Worsley to raising town of Manchester ……Brindley went on to connect Manchester with Liverpool in an even bolder manner , and in all laid out four hundred miles of canals in a network all over England.
当布兰德在为他的磨坊和矿井工程奔走的时候，处于兴趣他开始调查他走过的水路。于是，布里奇沃特公爵就让他建造运河，以便于把他在沃利斯矿井的煤矿运到新兴城市曼切斯特。布兰德还以一种更加大胆的方式把曼切斯特和利物浦链接起来，在整个英格兰他一共开凿了长达四百公里的运河网。
翻译难点：engineering :工程，如果只知道发动机恐怕无从下手。 Duke ：公爵**Liverpool：利物浦 ** bolder 大胆的 canals in a network：运河网

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Brindley had begun on his own account ,out of interest , to survey the waterways that he travelled as he went about his engineering projects for mills and mines .
此句中，to后面是目的状语，as引导时间状语，out of 引导原因状语。我们翻译句子的时候，一定要先把握好句子的主干，在分析从属成分之间的逻辑关系

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Two things are outstanding in the creation of English system of canals and they characterise all the Industrial Revolution . One is that the men who made the revolution were practical men. Like Brindley , they often had little education , and in fact school education as it then was could only dull an inventive mind . The grammar school legally could only teach the classical subjects for which they had been founded . The universities also (there were only tow, at Oxford and Cambridge) took little interest in modern or scientific studies ; and they were closed to those who did not conform to the Church of England.
在英国运河系统的创造过程中，有两点是非常突出的 。它们也是整个工业革命的特征。一件事是像布兰德这样的实干家，他们通常没受过什么教育，事实上当时的学校教育也只能使一个创新的头脑逐渐愚钝。法律规定，文法学校只能教授那些已经存在的学科。仅有的两所大学——牛津大学和剑桥大学也对现实生活和科学研究不重视。对于不信奉英国国教的人来说，他们没办法上大学。
characterise :使具有特征特色** practical men：实干家**
The other outstanding feature is that the new inventions were for everyday use . The canals were arteries of communication :They were not made to carry pleasure boats , but barges . And the barges were not made to carry luxuries , but pots and pans and bales of clothe , boxes of ribbon , and all the common things that people buy by the pennyworth . These things had been manufactured in villages which were growing into towns now , away from London ; it was a country-wide trade.

第二个突出的特色是新发明为日用服务。这些运河是交通的命脉：开运河并不是为了走游船，而是走货船，货船并不是用来装载奢侈品而是用来运送铁锅灶具，成捆的衣服，成箱的丝带，以及所有人民只花几便士就可以买到的日用品。那些远离伦敦的生产这些东西的农村正在向城镇演变。这是一场全国性的贸易。

These things had been manufactured in villages which were growing into towns now , away from London 特别注意后置定语的先行词是谁，这里是说的village而不是these things
pleasure boats:游船，artery:干线，命脉 ，arteries of communication：交通干线。barges ：货船 bales ：捆 **ribbon ：丝带，绸带。
pennyworth :值一便士的量；少量；些许
country-wide:全国的
outstanding feature：突出特点

翻译的时候，不妨把原文多读几遍，尽量准确理解文义，再想办法选词翻译。遇到定语从句一定要搞清楚他的先行词是谁，要做到这个，可以从句段结构和文义逻辑入手。