英国卫报:小冰块下的大生意(3)（在线收听）

In 1626, the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon was one of the first westerners to discover a new use for ice, after packing a dead chicken in snow in the hope of preserving its flesh.

1626年，英国哲学家弗朗西斯·培根爵士将一只死鸡裹在雪里来保存肉质，最后他成功了（他是这么说的：“真是好极了！”），

He succeeded (in his own words, "excellently well"), but in so doing unfortunately caught a chill that would, several days later, be the death of him.

由此成为了最早发现冰的新用途的西方人之一。不幸的是，用这种方法尝试几次后他染上了风寒，并于几天后去世。

It was not until 1785 that Bacon's insight found widespread acceptance – and even then, it was only thanks to a chance encounter between one Alexander Dalrymple,

培根保存肉质的方法直到1785年才被大众普遍接受——即便在那个时候，也要感谢

an official of the East India Company, and George Dempster, its former director.

东印度公司的官员亚历山大·达尔林普尔和其前董事乔治·登普斯特的一次偶遇。

Dalrymple mentioned in passing that the Chinese fishermen who operated in the waters around the company's trading post in Canton

达尔林普尔还顺带提及，在该公司位于广州的贸易站附近水域作业的中国渔民

were in the habit of taking ice on their fishing trips in order to preserve their catch at sea, and then to transport it over long distances once on shore.

习惯在捕鱼时带上冰块以保存在海上的渔获，上岸之后再进行长距离运输。

Dempster was sufficiently intrigued to write to his salmon supplier in Scotland, who sent a consignment of fish on ice, by sea, to London – it arrived, six days later, perfectly fresh.

邓普斯特对此很感兴趣，他写信给他在苏格兰的三文鱼供应商，供应商将一批带冰的鱼通过海路寄到伦敦，六天后鱼到了，非常新鲜。

This chance conversation set in motion a booming trade in what had been a hitherto overlooked commodity.

这次偶然的谈话引发了一场迄今为止一直被忽视的大宗商品交易的蓬勃发展。

When Joseph Marr, The Ice Co's founding father, decided to expand his fish-curing business in Hull into a fish-catching one, ice was an absolute necessity.

当The Ice Co的创始人约瑟夫·马尔决定把他在赫尔的养鱼业务扩大到捕鱼业务，冰成了必需品。

When the company moved to Fleetwood on the other side of the country in 1896, in pursuit of hake (then abundant off the UK's west coast),

1896年，该公司搬到了英国另一边的弗利特伍德，为了追寻鳕鱼(当时英国西海岸盛产鳕鱼)，

ice was what his son, James Herbert, imported from Norway, and subsequently stored in a giant cork-lined ice-house.

他的儿子詹姆斯·赫伯特从挪威进口了冰块，随后将之储存在一个巨大的软木贴面冰库里。

And ice, again, was what the company started to manufacture for itself in 1908, as a third generation of Marrs

等到了马尔家族第三代，每天来来往往的渔船已经形成了一种固定的模式：

settled into the daily rhythm of fishing boats coming and going – leaving stocked with ice, returning stocked with slightly less ice, and fish.

离开时带着冰块，回来时带着稍少的冰块和鱼。自此The Ice Co公司开始自己生产冰块。

To Joseph Marr, the idea that people might one day manufacture ice from water would doubtless have seemed fanciful, if not outright sacrilegious.

将来的某一天人们可能能够用水造冰，这个想法对于约瑟夫·马尔来说不仅有些亵渎神灵，而且无疑是天方夜谭。

As recently as 1844, when the American inventor John Gorrie took to the pages of the Commercial Advertiser to argue

直到1844年，当美国发明家约翰·戈里在商业广告中声称

"we know of no want of mankind more urgent than a cheap means of producing an abundance of artificial cold", he did so under a pseudonym, for fear of reprisals.

“我们知道，人类最急需的就是一种能够以低成本制造大量人工冷气的方法”。为了避免被报复，他使用了假名。

Gorrie, a doctor who specialised in treating malaria, had already produced a prototype of the modern air conditioner that blew air across a block of ice hanging above a feverish patient.

格里是一位主治疟疾的医生，他制造出了一种现代空调的原型，可以把空气吹过挂在发烧病人上方的冰块。

In 1851 he received a US patent for one of the world's first ice-making machines, which harnessed the cooling properties of pressurised gases as they expanded.

1851年，他获得了世界上第一台制冰机的美国专利，这种制冰机利用了受压气体膨胀时的冷却特性。

He was right to have worried about being deemed heretical: after a successful demonstration of his machine in 1850 at a dinner party at The Mansion hotel in Florida

他担心自己会被视为异类，事实也确实如此：1850年，他在佛罗里达的大厦酒店的一次晚宴上成功展示了自己的机器

(an event Smithsonian magazine subsequently dubbed "the chilly reception"), the New York Globe derisively reported that

（《史密森尼杂志》随后称这次活动为“冷宴”），之后，《纽约环球报》曾嘲笑地报道说：

"There is a Dr Gorrie, a crank down in Apalachicola, Florida, that thinks he can make ice by his machine as good as God Almighty".

“佛罗里达州的阿帕拉奇科拉市有一位格里博士，他说自己的机器能像万能的神一样制造冰块。”

But Gorrie did not live to enjoy his vindication: he failed to find financial backers for his product, and died, impoverished, five years later.

然而，格里在自己得到辩护之前就去世了：他没能为自己的产品找到资助人，五年后穷困潦倒地去世了。