Britain mines were by then also producing half of the world’s coal, sending ti to steam engines at factories via another innovation: canals. The first industrial canal, built to carry coal to Manchester, opened in 1759. It cost an eye-popping Pounds 10,500 per mile but halved the price of fuel. Speculators had sunk Pounds 50 million into canals by 1815, opening great swaths of the countryside to the industrial economy. By then, though, channels were already old hat. In 1804 a Cornish engineer used a lightweight, high-pressure steam engine to propel a carriage along iron rails. Within a decade similar engines were powering paddleboats. A generation later, George Stephenson’s famous Rocket was puffing between Liverpool and Manchester, pulling 13-ton load at 20 km per hour, and boats were paddling across the Atlantic. ~ Page 343
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Dinesh said: