This story appears in the May 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine. Grand Canal barges have no fancy names, no mermaids planted on the bow, no corny sayings painted on the stern. Instead ...

This story is part of a special National Geographic News series on global ... brick sewer until it reaches the Harlem River Ship Canal, which was dug in the 1890s, shaping the border with Manhattan.

Read this story and more in the June 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine ... is dumped into this canal on Taiwan’s southwest coast.