Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2430 Sonia ([-])
Sonia carefully browsed the pictures one by one on the easel with great interest, making sounds of surprise or joy from time to time.

Although Hualien is located on the main island of Taiwan, it is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and only the place facing the East China Sea can be entered by boat. Not to mention Europeans, even among the aborigines of the main island of Taiwan, few people have set foot here.

This is the place with the most heat and rain in Taiwan, and it is rich in animal and plant resources.It is conceivable that the investigation must be rewarding.

Most of these museum paintings are specimens of animals and plants collected in Hualien, as well as landforms and vegetation.

Sonia looked at the picture and at the same time looked at the corresponding manual.There are not many new things on plants, most of which are specimens that she has collected in other expeditions; but there are many new harvests in the collection of animal specimens.

She flipped through and found dozens of animal pictures: sika deer, Taiwan macaque, mountain qiang, long-maned goat, Taiwan black bear, sambar; birds such as gray-faced vulture, sparrow hawk, black-faced spoonbill, Emperor's pheasant, blue-bellied pheasant, Taiwan blue magpie, five-color bird and swallowtail butterfly, cherry hooked salmon, green sea turtle, Taipei tree frog, salamander, etc.

Among them, long-maned goats, Taiwan black bears and some birds are the first specimens collected by the expedition team.In the past, Sonia only saw the simple morphological diagrams of these animals from the "Taiwan Zoology" compiled by the National Library.

"Great, Taiwanese black bears really exist." Sonia murmured to herself while admiring the Taiwanese black bears described by Valentina, and asked, "Is the bear skin well preserved?"

"Tanned."

"What, tanned?" Sonia was taken aback.Taxidermy is essentially the act of propping up the hide with stuffing, restoring its original form.The peeled animal skins cannot be tanned, and most of them are preserved in raw hides with toxic antiseptic drugs such as arsenic paste.

"Teacher Cui said it's okay, he used a special method. It won't affect the subsequent production."

Since it was the elder who said it was all right, Sonia was relieved—the Australians gave her too many surprises, not this one.

Sonia asked questions while watching, and also asked a lot of investigation questions.Valentina had to remind her that she hadn't been to Hualien, these were all based on "glass paintings".

The so-called "glass painting" is actually a digital photo.Printing photos is too technically difficult for the Senate, and there is no place to replenish equipment and consumables. Therefore, the materials taken with digital imaging equipment in this time and space are all stored in digital form with various magnetic media storage devices. Multi-use playback devices such as tablet computers and high-definition televisions.Since most of these devices are LCD screens, they are naturally called "glass pictures" by the naturalized people who have come into contact with them.

Unlike the relatively popular movies, there are very few naturalized people who have access to "glass pictures", and they are limited to a small number of professional and technical personnel.Sonia and Valentina, who work at the Natural History Museum, have certainly seen it.

The image and color reproduction of the "glass picture" are very high, and it can also record dynamic images.It is very convenient to record animals and plants, so Sonia didn't understand why the elders had such a great interest in "natural painting" at first.Until Lin Hanlong once admitted that the Senate had no way to convert the contents of the "glass slide" into another medium.

"But those pictorials..." Sonia thought of the "pictures" that Lin Hanlong quietly took home and made her blush.

"Yes, yes, actually we have this technology, but we don't have the materials." Lin Hanlong roughly explained the raw materials needed for printing photos.

“…Right now, we only have the ability to print simple black-and-white photos, with no color and limited resolution.”

Sonia didn't ask why they had this ability in "Australia", but they didn't have it in Lingao.She's learned her lesson and won't ask any more questions.

"Then when will the technology be rebuilt?"

"It requires the efforts of many people and involves many disciplines. It will take several years." Lin Hanlong said, "In fact, even with such technology, scientific drawings are still very useful. Sometimes paintings are better than photos. Come out with details."

"It would be even better if I could go there in person." Sonia said with emotion, "It's a pity. Look, how beautiful the scenery is!"

What she saw was a colorful natural history painting of landforms and landscapes—although it was a scientific painting, it actually looked the same as a landscape painting.

"It's beautiful, but there are a lot of barbarians there. The expedition team was also attacked." The Italian girl said, "I heard that they specialize in cutting off heads!"

Of course, Sonia knew about Taiwan’s aborigines cutting their heads out of weeds. When she went to Tainan to investigate, she visited the aboriginal villages full of human heads, and got a grass-grown head through a local Han vendor—— It has been air-dried for many years.The head is currently in a wooden box at the Natural History Museum.

"With the protection of armed guards, what is there to be afraid of?" Sonia flipped through the landscapes one by one.These landform paintings reflect the scenery of the Hualien-Taitung Rift Valley Plain, and the survey was in autumn.Under the invasion of the cold current, the green hills and green valleys on both sides of the valley are glowing with red leaves, reflecting the morning sun, like fire and brocade, which is extremely dazzling.

She quickly identified a large number of deciduous broad-leaved forest belts on the 500-meter-high mountain vegetation map.Among them, green maple and sweetgum are the most important red-leaved trees. In addition, there are other trees such as Taiwan beech, Taiwan lattice, Pistacia chinensis, and spicy wood.The leaves of these trees show different shades of red such as bright red, dark red, and orange red at the end of autumn and winter when the weather is cold.

"It's so beautiful! You can draw well!" Sonia said sincerely, "I can't draw it."

"It's nothing." Valentina pretended not to care, but she was very happy in her heart. "The scenery is indeed beautiful, but it's a barbaric place! It would be great if there were no barbarians and malaria."

"Neither savages nor malaria are opponents of the Senate." Sonia said, attracted by the next set of paintings.This group is the scenery on the foothills.The scenery also includes an Aboriginal village.She looked at the description: Beinan, the central mountain range of Taiwan Island, is at the eastern foot of the main mountain.The alluvial fan of Red Leaf Creek.The fan surface of the alluvial fan has been cut due to the relationship between flowing water and terrain movement, forming uneven river terraces, similar to valley landforms.The surrounding mountains and ridges are covered with green maples and green bamboos, and the green water surrounds the green mountains like a belt, and the scenery is pleasant.

After reading all the pictures, Sonia put the heavy picture book on the shelf——next, she will write relevant natural history explanations for the picture book.But there is no rush for this job, you have to go back one row.

"Have all the collected animals been sent?"

"It's all here—stinky!" She pinched her nose. "The smell of carrion. I wonder if you can still use it as a specimen."

"It's all rotten?"

"Those skins are okay, I don't think much of the whole animal, it stinks!"

"Where is everything now?"

"In the basement, kept on ice."

"Let's talk about it tomorrow." Sonia looked at her schedule, "Tomorrow I will take the apprentice to see the situation."

"It's up to you. Anyway, I don't want to go...I'll paint after you finish the specimen." Valentina has little interest in natural history, painting and work are only because of the master's order-she doesn't care about being at home Be a "full-time maid".After all, in Lingao, there are so many wonderful things to enjoy.I don't know how many times better than the hut she lived in Italy.

"Okay, I'll call you when I need you." Sonia said helplessly. In fact, she really hoped that the Italian girl would be by her side. First, she could talk, and second, it would be better to do some drawing work on the spot.

"Then I'll go first, there are still a lot of paintings to be painted." Valentina stretched her waist, "It would be great if I could have a small house in such a beautiful place-of course, this is waiting for Australians Conquered the land."

After talking about something she remembered, she took out a leather notebook from her satchel.

"This is what Chief Cui told me to give to you. It's the Hualien inspection notes. He said you will be interested."

"Great!" Sonia got excited and took it immediately, "Please tell him: Thank you very much for his kindness!"

After seeing off Valentina, Sonia took out an "English-Chinese Dictionary" compiled by the large library from the drawer, and opened the notebook impatiently.She already has a certain level of Chinese reading ability and can understand relatively simple articles.But when reading long articles, you still need to use a dictionary to understand the complete meaning.

"...The Taitung Rift Valley Plain is located in the east of Taiwan Island, between the Central Mountain Range and the Coastal Mountain Range. It starts from Hualien in the north and reaches Taitung in the south, so it is also called the Huadong Rift Valley Plain. It is 180 kilometers long from north to south and 2 to 7 kilometers wide from east to west. km, with an area of ​​about 1000 square kilometers and an altitude of 50-250 meters. Among them, the northern and southern ends of the Rift Valley have Hualien Plain and Taitung Delta Plain with an area of ​​about 80 square kilometers, and there is an important port on the east coast - Hualien Port , located on the east side of the Hualien Plain, at 121.17 degrees east longitude and 23.08 degrees north latitude, is an important traffic channel for the entire Taitung Rift Valley and the only traffic channel for communicating with the outside world.

"The Taitung Rift Valley is a fault valley with high mountains on both sides and steep terrain, and the plain is narrow and long in a belt shape. It is also called "flood plain" because of the impact of sediment released from the mountains on both sides. Its geological origin is in the center of Taiwan. The mountain range and the Eurasian continental plate to the west and the Pacific plate to the east of the coast mountain range and the Pacific plate to the east were formed by the collision of 1000 million years ago, and then the rivers on both sides of the rift were continuously eroded and silted up, forming today's Rift Valley Plain. Although the area of ​​the plain is less than 1000 square kilometers, it is rare in the eastern region of this mountain cluster. It falls like a jade belt between the Central Mountain Range and the Coastal Mountain Range, becoming the most fertile area in eastern Taiwan."

(End of this chapter)