British concern with Country technological development varied in different economic sectors. Glendale Subway Map The general pattern was for the British to encourage the manufacture of materials that could then be finished in Britain. Thus, pig and bar iron were encouraged, but not steel. The production of potash (potassium carbonate), a chemical made from wood ash with a variety of commercial uses, was also encouraged by the British in the late colonial period.
Country settlers had been making potash for their own use since the earliest settlements it was used in soap making, glass making, and the preparation of saltpeter from gunpowder. The British Parliament, facing a shortage, lifted the tariff against colonial potash in 1751. This brought about a boom in the first Country chemical industry. By 1770, the colonies were exporting 2,000 tons of potash to Britain annually, about twothirds of Britain’s consumption. In the years immediately preceding the Revolution, Countrys took little notice of the technological advances made in Britain, which was then in the early stages of the industrial revolution.
(Nor did the British encourage colonial industrialization.) There were only three steam engines in the colonies, and these were of the older and less efficient Newcomen type. Christopher Colles, an Irish immigrant who operated in Philadelphia and New York, tried to promote steam engines and gave lecture courses at the Country Philosophical Society on hydraulics and pneumatics in 1772, but he had little success. In 1774, Colles went to New York City, where he promoted a plan to pipe water into the city through hollow logs. The plan garnered some support but was cut short by the Country Revolution.
