The heart of Mexico is a high, oval valley surrounded by mountains. Once, forests covered the mountainsides, and broad, shining lakes covered nearly all the valley floor. Now, the mountains are bare and scarred with erosion（侵蚀）, and much of the valley floor is dry and dusty. Cortez and his Spanish soldiers were the first Europeans to enter this valley. They saw the thriving Aztec city of Tenochtitlan rising from an island in one of the lakes. Surrounding it were green floating gardens. The Spaniards said it was as beautiful as a dream. Then the conquest began. By 1521, when the Spaniards had conquered the fierce Aztecs, the island city was in ruins. Cortez decided to rebuild it after the pattern of European cities. Using the conquered Aztecs as slave laborers, Cortez built the new city, now Mexico City, in just four years. “But a generation had scarcely passed after the conquest before a sad change came over these scenes so beautiful,” writes one historian. The broad, shining lakes began to dry up. Modern historians believe that Cortez began the destruction of the valley’s lakes when be ordered the city rebuilt. A great deal of charcoal was needed to burn the limestone (石灰石) from which cement (水泥) and mortar were made. Wood was needed to finish the interiors of the buildings. The mountainside forests were destroyed to provide the charcoal and wood. Once the sloped were bare, rainfall o longer seeped (渗漏) slowly into the earth to feed the springs that filled the valley’s lakes. Instead, rainfall poured off the mountainsides the city from floods, later rulers made a cut through the mountains so that the water drained away into another valley. Mexico City, once an island, had become a city of a dry plain. 小题1:The underlined word “thriving” in the second paragraph means _______.
Keeping nature’s balance is not important any more. Men thought nature’s resources would last forever. New forests always automatically replace old ones. The Aztecs didn’t begin to flourish until Cortez came. 小题3:Why did later rulers cut through the mountains ? They wanted to fill the city with rainwater. They wanted the valleys to flood regularly. They wanted to plant more trees. They wanted to protect the city from floods. 小题4: One the whole, the article tells about ______. Mexico as it looked when it was a European city Modern historians who write about Mexico City Mexico city before and after the Spaniards came The beautiful scenery in Mexico 小题5: What is the author’s purpose of writing this article?
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