It allows the reader to appreciate the importance of water power to the Scottish economy and the range of processes, both small- and large-scale, which were powered by water: grain mills, textile manufacture, paper production, sawmills, the brewing industry, coal mining, the iron industry . . .
The distribution and location of different types of mills and industries are described, as is the technology involved in each water-powered process. Clear and informative illustrations and maps are provided throughout.
What emerges from this exhaustive and scholarly study is the sheer extent to which Scottish industry relied on water power before the Industrial Revolution, and the important role that water power played in the early stages of that revolution. The author argues that historians need to revise their estimate of the relative importance of water viv-a-vis steam power in nineteenth-century Scotland, where water power continued to be used for longer and in a wider variety of industries than in England.
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