What’s that big, crusty-looking thing on the ground? Los Angeles workers dug it out from the soil. It is a large chunk of a water pipe. It comes from the Zanja Madre. That’s Spanish. It means “Mother Ditch.”

The Mother Ditch is called “mother” for a reason. It was part of the city’s very first water system. In the 1700s, the ditch took water from the Los Angeles River to the town. Fresh water helped Los Angeles grow. Now it is an important city.

Water is everywhere. It’s in plants. It’s in the air. It’s in our bodies. People cook, bathe, run machines, and farm using water. Think about the people who live outside Los Angeles. What if they had to walk to the river every time they were thirsty or needed to run a machine? That would be a lot of extra work!

People find ways to move water from one place to another. They have done so through all of history. Here are just a few amazing waterways of the past:

—Solomon’s Pools: In Bible times, King Solomon built pools to hold water. They were filled by underground springs. One after another, the pools stepped up the hillside. They provided water from near Bethlehem all the way to the temple in Jerusalem. That’s about seven miles. The temple needed lots of water. It was used for bathing and cleaning up after sacrifices.

—Roman Aqueducts: Early Romans used gravity to run water downward in ditches made of brick or stone. These were called aqueducts. Some were below ground. But others stood far above ground. Some of their remains can still be seen today.

—Nazca Puquios: The Nazca people of Peru built their water system about 1,500 years ago. They call it the Puquios. Underground channels direct water running through rock. Circular paths wind around and down to the water supply. The wells and tunnels are still used by people in the Nazca Valley today.