courtesy of Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, July 1989

To the ancient traveler on foot or camel back, the massive walled city of Babylon and its network of canals and verdant crop lands must have loomed like a mirage in the simmering heat of the Near East sun. Adding to a disbelieving eye was a 300-ft. …

courtesy of Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, July 1988

The first epidemic of a waterborne disease probably was caused by an infected caveman relieving himself in waters upstream of his neighbors.

Perhaps the entire clan was decimated, or maybe the panicky survivors packed up their gourds and fled from the “evil spirits” inhabiting their camp to …

courtesy of Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, July 1987

Baseball fans take note. Arizona’s Hohokam Park in Mesa, Ariz., may ring a bell as the spring training grounds of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. It is named for the far-flung, extinct Hohokam Indians who played their own brand of ball and worked those same fields centuries …