In the spring of 1974, farmers digging a well in the dry farmland outside the Chinese city of Xi’an struck fragments of hardened clay that turned out to be far more than broken pottery. Their shovels ...

A terrible drought struck the province of Shaanxi in 1974. The farmers there, who wanted to help themselves out, began to dig a well on the hills around Li Mountains, not far from Xi’an. No water came ...