1776 - Energy

Energy

A Staffordshire colliery installs a Watt-Boulton steam engine and uses it for pumping water out of flooded passages (see 1774). Another is installed to blow air into the furnaces of ironmaster John Wilkinson. Inventor James Watt will spend much of the next 5 years in Cornwall, where copper- and tin-mine managers view the steam engine as a possible means of reducing fuel costs, but mines and mills in Britain and worldwide will continue for decades to rely for energy upon water wheels and the muscle power of horses, oxen, water buffalo, and humans (see 1781).