Water power and human invention

Dipping into the ol' library for a random quotation.

On human invention and water power.

"When it first occurred to a reflecting mind that moving water had a property identical with human or brute force, namely, the property of setting other masses in motion, overcoming inertia and resistance -- when the sight of the stream suggested through the point of likeness the power of the animal --a new addition was made to the class of prime movers, and when circumstances permitted, this power could become a substitute for the others."

Alexander Bain, THE SENSES AND INTELLECT (1879).

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