1 About three hundred years ago, there were approximately half a billion people in the world. In the two centuries that followed the population doubled, and, by 1850, there were more than a billion people in the world. It took only 75 years for the figure to double once more, so that now the population figure stands at approximately three and one half billion. Each day the population of the world increases by about 150,000.
大约300年前，世界上约有5亿人口。在之后的两个世纪中，人口翻了一番。1850年世界上已超过10亿人。仅75年之后这个数字又翻了一番。现在人口总数为35亿左右。世界人口以每天15万人的速度在增长。
2 In former centuries the population grew slowly. Famines, wars, and epidemics, such as the plague and cholera, killed many people. Today, although the birth rate has not changed significantly, the death rate has been lowered considerably by various kinds of progress.
前几个世纪，人口增长缓慢。饥荒、战争以及诸如鼠疫、霍乱等流行病使许多人死于非命。现在尽管出生率没有大的变化，但由于诸多进步，死亡率却大幅度下降。
3 Machinery has made it possible to produce more and more food in vast areas, such as the plains of America and Russia. Crops have been increased almost everywhere and people are growing more and more food. New forms of food preservation have also been developed so that food need not be eaten as soon as it is grown. Meat, fish, fruit and vegetables can be dried, tinned or frozen, then stored for later use.
机器使许多广阔的区域，例如美国和俄罗斯的许多大平原得以生产出越来越多的食物。世界各地的收普遍提高，人们种植的食物越来越多的食物。世界各地的收成普遍提高，人们种植的食物越为越多。储藏食物的新方法也得到了发展。这样粮食就必一成熟就吃掉。对肉、鱼和水果可以进行干燥、装罐或冷冻，然后储存起来以备后用。
4 Improvement in communications and transportation has made it possible to send more food from the place where it is produced to other places where it is needed. This has helped reduce the number of famines
通讯及交通条件的改善可使越来越多的食物从产地运往需求地，从而使饥荒数量得到减少。
5 Generally speaking, people live in conditions of greater security. Practices such as the slave trade, which caused many useless deaths, have been stopped.
一般来讲，人们的生活环境更加安全了。象奴隶贸易这种导致大量无谓死亡的活动已被废止。
6 Progress in medicine and hygiene has made it possible for people to live longer. People in Europe and North America live, on the average, twice as long as they did a hundred years ago. In other countries, too, people generally live much longer than they once did. Babies, especially, have a far better chance of growing up because of increased protection against infant disease. However, all countries do not benefit to the same degree from this progress in medicine and hygiene.
医疗卫生事业的进步使人们更加长寿。欧洲和北美居民的寿命已是100年前的2倍。在其他地区人们也普遍比以前长寿。特别是婴儿，其长大成人的机会也大增加，这是由于防止婴儿疾病的保护措施得到了完善。然而，并不是所有国家都从医疗卫生的进步中得到了同等的实惠。
7 In Europe and North America, the growing population has had the advantage of greater quantities of natural resources and food. However, in some places, such as the monsoon countries of Asia, the birth rate has always been very high. Now, with better hygienic conditions and better medical care, fewer babies die; but the birth rate has changed. This means that the population is growing very rapidly and that there is not enough food for everyone.
在欧洲和北美，增长中的人口具有更丰富的食物和自然资源的优势。然而有些国家，例如受季风影响的亚洲国家，出生率一直很高。由于卫生和医疗条件的改善，婴儿死亡率很低；然而出生率并没有变。这意味着人口迅速增长，人们没有足够的食物。
8 Half the world’s people live in Asia, but most of them are concentrated in the coastal regions and on the islands. The same type of populace concentration is true of other continents, although they are often for less populated. There are still vast regions of the world where very few people live: the central regions of the larger continents, mountainous areas, deserts, the far north, and tropical jungles.
世界人口的一半居住在亚洲。但是这些人口大多集中于沿海地区和岛屿。其他各州的人口要少得多，然而也存在着与此相同的人口集中模式。世界上还有很多广阔的地区人烟稀少；大块陆地的中央地带，山区、沙漠，靠近北极的地区以及热带丛林。
9 In prehistoric times, people from Africa and Asia migrated to other continents. Europe was occupied by people from the east, America by groups from Asia. In the nineteenth century, the population of Europe increased rapidly, and living conditions were sometimes difficult because of wares, or political conditions. Many Europeans left their countries to find better conditions in America, Africa and Australia.
在史前时代，人们从非洲和亚洲移往其他大陆。欧洲由来自东方的人所占据，美洲则由来自亚洲的种族占据。19世纪欧洲人口迅速增长，但是由于战争、饥荒以及政治形势等原因，其生存条件常常很艰难。许多欧洲人离开他们的国家到美洲、非洲和澳大利亚去寻找更好的环境。
10 During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, migrations have taken place within certain countries: the cities with their industries have attracted people away from the country. The possibility of earning a fixed salary in a factory or office was more attractive than the possibility of staying on the farm and having one’s work destroyed by frost, storms, or droughts. Furthermore, the development of agricultural machinery made it possible for fewer people to do the same amount of work.
19世纪和20世纪期间，在某些国家内部也发生了移民：拥有多种产业的城市吸引人口离开农村。在工厂或机关工作就可能赚得固定的工资，在农场，自己的劳动就很可能毁于霜冻、暴风雨和干旱。此外，农业机械的发呢使得同样数量的工作可以由更少的人来完成。
11 Thus, at the same time that the industrial revolution made it possible to produce goods more cheaply and more quickly in factories, and agricultural revolution also took place. Instead of leaving fields empty every third year, farmers began to plant clover or some other crop that would enrich the soil. Instead of using only animal fertilizer, farmers began to use chemical fertilizers to keep the soil rich. These methods have enabled French farmers, for example, to get five times as much wheat as was obtained from the same land two centuries ago.
这样，工业革命使工厂能以更低的成本，更快的速度生产产品，与此同时，农业革命也发生了。农民们开始种植三叶草或其他作物以增台土壤肥力，不再是旬以前那样每到第三年便将土地闲置。农民不再仅限于使用动物肥料，而是开始使用化肥来保持土壤肥力。这些方法使法国农民在同一块土地上收获的小麦是两个世纪前的５倍。
12 In many countries farmers find it more profitable to raise only one crop or one kind of animal. They choose the kind that gives the best results. Then they sell all that they produce, instead of trying to grow a little of everything and consume what they grow. This is a more feasible type of operation because modern methods and machinery are adapted to specific animals and specific crops. Therefore, it would be too expensive to do all the work by hand, or to buy the equipment needed for several different kinds of farming.
许多国家的农民发现，只种植一种作物或只养殖一种牲畜更有利可图。他们选择收益最大的品种，然后卖掉全部产品。而不是什么都种一点只供自己消费。这是一种更为可行的作法，因为特定的现代化手段和机械只适用于特定的牲畜和作物。因此，用手工完成所有工作，或者购买不同农业生产所需的所有设备都将是十分昂贵。
13 At the same time, constant progress has been going on in industry. Fifty years ago it took a day to assemble the pieces of an automobile. Today one factory can produce one car in a minute. Today, too, it takes only one textile worker to supervise the production of as much cotton cloth as 4,000 workers could have produced in the eighteenth century. Modern industry needs large numbers of specialized workers. The less specialized workers are gradually being replaced by new machines. Large quantities of raw materials, sometimes brought from halfway around the world, are also needed. To work the machines, energy must be supplied from sources such as coal, water power, electricity and oil. And to build, maintain and improve modern factories, great financial resources are necessary. A factory is often the property of a society or a government, rather than the property of one person.
与此同时，工业也在不断进步。50年前把一辆汽车的零件组装起来需要一天时间。今天工厂一分钟就能生产一辆汽车。今天，仅一个纺织工人管理生产的棉布数量在18世纪要由4000人完成。现代工业需要大量的专业工人。专业程度较低的工人９所做的工作）逐渐被新机器所替代。同时也需要大量的原材料，有时这些原材料要绕地球半周才能取来。机器的运行还需要能源，这些能源是由煤、水力、电力和石油提供的。现代工厂的建造、维持及发呢也需要大量的财源。一个工厂往往是一个社会或一个政府的财产而不是某一人的财产。
After producing its goods, industry must sell these goods to people. If a factory can produce more goods than it is able to sell in its own country, it tries to sell them to people of other countries. Thus, nowadays we see more and more trade agreements making it easier to exchange raw materials and more trade agreements making it easier to exchange raw materials and manufactured goods between countries, and great advertising campaigns helping industries sell more goods.
工业在产品产出之后，必需将其产品卖给人们。如果一家工厂的产量超出本国所需，它就将努力将其销往别国。所以现在我们见到越来越多的贸易协定，这使地区间原材料及制成品的交换更为容易，同时大量的广告活动也使工业销售更多的产品。