Chapter 8.5, Problem 1RQ

To determine

The geographic factors those are important in explaining the beginning of Industrial Revolution.

Answer to Problem 1RQ

The geographic factors that are important in explaining the beginning of Industrial Revolution are the inanimate energy sources such as water, steam, and power and other factors such as water resources, canals, establishment of rail and road routes, and availability of abundant raw materials and resources.

Explanation of Solution

Europe has marked the modern industrialism with the invention of two fundamental changes. One is the replace of human labor by the machines in the manufacturing processes and the other is the use of inanimate energy sources such as water, steam, electricity, and petroleum powering these new machines. Although these techniques were developed in England between 1730 and 1850, it was spread throughout the Europe and rest of the world by the end of the 19th century.

England is located on the flanks of the Pennine Mountains, which is good in the textile industry. Yorkshire on the eastern side of the Pennines has extensive sheep herds, which are used for the woolen textiles, and the wool is cleaned by the clean mountain waters.

The water wheels that were used before are later replaced by the steam engines. After the development of railroad in the 19th century, the development allowed coal to be moved to long distances at reasonable costs and made it much easier.

The industrial districts in the continental Europe are located near the coal fields. Here as in English midlands, the cottage-based woolen textile industries are converted to steam-powered machines. Ruhr in northwestern Germany is a dominant industrial area overall in Europe.

The coal deposits near the surface made this area one of the heavy industrial regions with iron and steel manufacturing industries. Later, it became the strength in the Nazi Germany’s war machine, which was used in World War-II.