As Britain’s urban population ballooned, two factors tipped the balance in favor of the steam engine. The first was the new machine’s insulation from nature’s fluctuations: unlike water wheels, steam engines worked at the same rate all the time, so long as there was coal to feed them and the machinery wasn’t broken. The flow rates of rivers were of no concern. Steam engines also worked anywhere, regardless of the geography, which meant that factory owners could shift production from more remote areas to cities like London, Manchester, and Lancaster, where there were gluts of willing industrial
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