GarageYears,
Your 'Breakers & Ground Wires' is very interesting reading, esp:
Grounding to a Water Pipe
A bare 12 gauge copper wire was inserted into the hot wire side and the voltage was confirmed by meter to be 120 volts. It was touched directly to a cold water pipe and did not trip the breaker! This is a copper pipe and extends without interruption directly out into the earth.
The DC resistance from both the ground and neutral electrical terminals to that copper pipe was measured and found to be essentially zero. The digital ohmmeter measured about 1 ohm or less to the pipe. If the earth were acting as a simple ohmic conductor back to the ground at the service box, it would have conducted 120 amperes and would have immediately tripped the breaker.
So, to the tiny meter voltage and current it exhibits < 1 Ohm but rather more resistance to the phase line?