Thomas Newcomen built his atmospheric steam engine in 1712 at a colliery near Dudley in the English Midlands. It used steam condensed inside a cylinder to create a partial vacuum, driving a piston that worked a pump to lift water out of deep coal and tin mines. Though fuel-hungry and slow, it was the first steam engine to perform useful mechanical work reliably and at scale.
By making it practical to drain and deepen mines, it opened up far greater supplies of coal and began the harnessing of fossil power that would later drive the factory, the railway and the industrial city.
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