ABSTRACT
Before the successful application of steam power to rotary motion in the late 1780s, most industrial processes either relied upon intensive human labour or were carried out with the aid of animals, wind or water. The horse gin was applied to textile production, for winding purposes in mines, and in a wide range of crushing processes, especially in agriculture. Windmills, although chiefly used for flour milling and water pumping, were widely applied to industry both in low-lying areas with insufficient water power potential and elsewhere where demand dictated. Waterwheels, on the other hand, were widely applied to industrial tasks and were crucial to the early stages of industrialization. They drove yarn-spinning mills, fulling stocks, tilt hammers, furnace bellows, ore crushers, grinding wheels and machines for the manufacture of dyes, needles, gunpowder, paper and leather. Their oldest application was in processing farm products including flour milling. Eighteenth-century experiments greatly increased the efficiency of such applications and widened the scope for both windmills and watermills. In some industries it was several decades before steam was regarded as superior to these earlier sources of power.
