英语阅读练习(下).doc

Unit One Passage 1 Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, summed up the four chief qualities of money some 2,000 years ago. It must be lasting and easy to recognize, to divide, and to carry about. In other words it must be, ‘durable, distinct, divisible and portable ’. When we think of money today, we picture it either as round, flat pieces of metal which we call coins, or as printed paper notes. But there are still parts of the world today where coins and notes are of no use. They will buy nothing, and a traveler might starve if he had none of the particular local ‘money’ to exchange for food. Among isolated peoples, who are not often reached by traders from outside, commerce usually means barter. There is a direct exchange of goods. Perhaps it is fish for vegetables, meat for grain, or various kinds of food in exchange for pots, baskets, or other manufactured goods. For this kind of simple trading, money is not needed, but there is often something that everyone wants and everybody can use, such as salt to flavor food, shells for ornaments, or iron and copper to make into tools and vessels. These things-salt, shells or metals-are still used as money in out-of-the-way parts of the world today. Salt may seem rather a strange substance to use as money, but in countries where the food of the people is mainly vegetable, it is often an absolute necessity. Cakes of salt, stamped to show their value, were used as money in Tibet until recent times, and cakes of salt will still buy goods in Borneo and parts of Africa. Cowries sea shells have been used as money at some time or another over the greater part of the Old World. These collected mainly from the beaches of the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, and were traded to India and China. In Africa, cowries were traded right across the continent from East to West. Four or five thousand and went for one Maria Theresa dollar, an Austrian silver coin which was once accepted as currency in many parts of Africa. Metal