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Excerpt from The Miner's Friend; or,
An Engine to Raise Water by Fire

Published in 1702

"Then I say, such an engine may be made large enough to do the work required in employing eight, ten, fifteen, or twenty horses."

Around the year 1700, owners of British coal mines faced a problem common to mines of all types: how to get rid of the water that constantly seeped into the mine and threatened to flood the deep pits. The existing system, using horses and pulleys to lift buckets filled with water, was expensive and slow. As mines were dug deeper, the bucket system could not keep pace. The challenge of keeping mines dry provided the motivation for development of the steam engine, one of the first steps in a long process of introducing mechanical power alongside human and animal muscles to drive machines—a process called the Industrial Revolution.

Removing water...