江西省赣州市信丰县信丰中学2014-2015学年高二英语练习5 含答案.docVIP

2015.1 高二英语练习5 第一部分A ???Charles Lyell, a great youth, had different ideas. He wrote a book about them called Principles of Geology. The earth, according to Lyell, was not only thousands of years old; it was millions of years old. As to the common belief that changes in the earth’s surface happen suddenly because of a single earthquake or flood, he said that this might happen once in a while, but usually these changes took place very slowly. He believed that the surface of the earth had been changing from the beginning of time. The changes, he said, were caused by the long-term action of the winds and seas, and by forces such as volcanoes breaking out under the earth’s surface. Once in a great while he thought, a mountain might appear for the first time after an earthquake. But usually mountains would experience a slow and steady rise. ???A professor named Henslow was interested in Lyell’s ideas, but he did not actually believe them. Charles Darwin could not make up his mind about them. But they set him thinking along lines which would later change the beliefs of thoughtful people under the sun. At the?University?of?Cambridge, Charles Darwin studied just enough to pass the examination, and received his college degree in 1831. During this time, he had become more and more interested in geology. At the end of the school year, he went to?North Wales?with one of his teachers to examine the rock formations and to search for fossils. Fossils are the remains of ancient living things. They are usually fixed in rocks in the earth’s crust. Fossils may be of animals, such as fish, insects, birds, or humans. They may be of plants from tiny leaves to huge trees. When a living creature dies, it usually decays or is eaten by animals. However, if it sinks into a riverbed or is quickly covered by the blowing sands of a desert storm, the bones are kept up in the earth. Over many years the soft inner parts of a bone disappear, leaving the inside hollow. Water containing minerals enter