新概念二 Lesson 55.pptVIP

Lesson 55 Not a gold mine Teacher: ________ gold n. 金子 mine n. 矿 gold mine 金矿 treasure n. 财宝 金银财宝，珠宝（不可数） revealer n. 探测器 reveal v. 透露、泄露、揭露 invent v. 发明 detect v. 探测 detective n. 侦探 pirate n. 海盗 ＊pirated adj. 盗版的 bury v. 埋藏 The pirates buried their treasure. trunk n. arm finally adv. 最后 in the end / at last worthless adj. 毫无价值的 Time is precious, do not waste it on worthless deeds. thoroughly adv. 彻底地 completely / totally confident v. 有信心的 value n. 价值 Watch the video and then answer the questions. What has the machine ‘The Revealer’ been used to do? Why did the search party go into a cave near the seashore? What did the party find after searching the whole cave thoroughly? * * John Augustus Sutter emigrated from Switzerland to California in 1839. California was then a Mexican province, and from its governor he gained title to land in order to start a settlement named New Switzerland at the meeting point of the Sacramento and American rivers. He took possession of 50,000 acres (20,235 hectares), and 10 years later he was a prosperous rancher. When the Mexican War of 1846–48 brought California to the United States, Sutters future seemed assured. Then, suddenly, events turned against him. On the morning of Jan. 24, 1848, one of his employees, James Wilson Marshall, discovered gold at the site of a sawmill construction project. Marshall and Sutter agreed to become partners in mining the gold, but soon the news leaked out. Sutters property was besieged by thousands of trappers, farmers, sailors, lawyers, preachers, and people from nearly every other occupation—all of whom wanted to strike it rich in the new gold find. This was the beginning of the first, and still most famous, gold rush of modern times. Within a year, the “Forty-niners” flooded by the thousands into California seeking wealth, and in the process they built up northern California and the city of San Francisco. The gold rush of 1849 played a significant role in the