ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the important borrowing process, with particular attention to the factors affecting the rate of diffusion of the basic inventions of the steam engine and the new ironmaking technology. There are many possible ways of thinking about technology. At one level it may be observed as a set of principles and techniques which has become embodied in a particular collection of machines, tools, or commodities. As a source of motive power the steam engine competed with water, animal power and, in some places, wind and, of course, human muscle power. The willingness to adopt the new power source depended, first of all, upon the demand for power and, second, upon the availability and the cost of alternative forms of power. Although the availability of a good substitute slowed the pace at which the stationary steam engine was acquired in the US, the situation was vastly different in the application of steam power to transportation.
