Three hundred and ten years ago, Thomas Newcomen, a Devonshire ironmonger and Baptist lay preacher, erected, after several years of experimentation, an atmospheric engine of his own design to pump groundwater from the depths of the Coneygree Colliery, near Dudley Castle in the English Midlands.
This event, usually treated as a footnote in any list of the many causes of the Industrial Revolution, should never be underestimated. It was, in fact, an Archimedean point in human history.
The eve…
