Outline:
- Originally driven by animal power.
- The second stage was water power.
- The steam engine replaced water power.
- Electricity from (1) coal. (2) hydro-electric plant.
Little more than a hundred years ago, raw material was “manufacture” means to “make by hand”. Men drove their simple machines by hand or foot. Larger machines came into use, which were too big for the houses of the workers. So the led to the beginning of large workshops of factories. Animal power, either of horses or oxen, was used in some factories to replace “manual” labour.
Then some inventive person found that running water could be used to turn the wheels of machinery, so large workshops were built on the banks of quick-flowing rivers. But it happened sometimes that swift rivers did not exist in the same localities where the raw materials were produced, and a century ago the means of transport were nto well developed. In the case of the woollen manufacture, the sheep might be fed on the hilly slopes that give water-power to the valleys below. Both Scotland and England furnish many examples of woollen face tories in close proximity to the sheep rearing areas.
It frequently happened, however, that the raw material was produced at some point far removed from a site suitable for a factory. “I This was especially the case with cotton. Factories were then erected as near as possible to a navigable river where the raw material might be conveniently landed.[the_ad id=”17141”]
We have seen that man-power gave way to animal-power. Then animal-power was replaced by water-power. There was soon to follow a still greater force for the driving of machinery. Ere the end of the eighteenth century, James Watt had shown that steam-power could be utilized for the driving of machinery. During the latter half of the century, numerous inventions were made in connection with machinery. These, together with the application of steam-power, completely changed the factory system.
When water-power was first used in factories, the population moved to the vicinity of swift-flowing streams. The introduction of steam-power resulted in further distribution of the population. Fuel was required for the new power; hence factory workers were attracted to the neighborhood of coal-fields. So it happened that the busy manufacturing centers of the world have grown up of the near to the great coal-fields. The latest development in power is the discovery that rapid streams can be used to produce electricity, a greater means of power than either running water or steam. Coal can be transformed into steam, of course, but coal is not always plentiful. Italy has no coal, but runs all her factories by electricity produced in her hydro-electric schemes in her swiftly flowing rivers coming from the Alps. Bharat and Pakistan have enormous resources of hydro-electric power, equal to most countries, or even better, but little developed as yet. Factories will arise in all parts of the country, worked by electric power from the swift rivers from the hills.