We see that the early experimental period in the cotton industry produced no very palpable effect upon the volume of the trade. Between 1700 and 1750 the manufacture was stagnant.[79] The woollen manufacture, owing largely to the stimulus of the fly-shuttle, showed considerable expansion. The great increase of cotton production in 1770-90 measures the force of the mechanical inventions without the aid of the new motor. The full effects of the introduction of steam power were retarded by the strain of the French war. Though 1800 marks the beginning of a large continuous expansion in both cotton and woollen manufactures, it was not until about 1817, when the new motor had established itself generally in the large centres of industry and the energy of the nation was called back to the arts of peace, that the new forces began to fully manifest their power. The period 1840 onwards marks the effect of the revolution in commerce due to the application of the new motor to transport purposes, the consequent cheapening of raw material, especially of cotton, the opening up of new markets for the purchase of raw material and for the sale of manufactured goods. The effect of this diminished cost of production and increased demand for manufactured goods upon the textile trades is measured by the rapid pace of the expansion which followed the opening of the early English railways and the first establishment of steam-ship traffic. § 8. The development of the textile trades, and that of cotton in particular, arose from the invention of new machinery. This machinery was quickened and rendered effective by the new motor. The iron trade in its development presents the reverse order. The discovery of a new motor was the force which first gave it importance. The mechanical inventions applied to producing iron were stimulated by the requirements of the new motor. In 1740 the difficulty of obtaining adequate supplies of timber, and the failure of attempts to utilise pit-coal, had brought the iron trade to a very low condition. According to Scrivener, at this time "the iron trade seemed dwindling into insignificance and contempt."[80] The earlier steps in its rise from this degradation are measured by the increased application of pit-coal and the diminished use of charcoal. The progress may be marked as follows:-- (1) The application of Watt's earlier improvements upon Newcomen's engines, patented 1769, was followed by a rise in the average output for furnaces worked with charcoal. The average output of 294 tons in 1750 was increased to 545 tons in 1788. (2) The substitution of coke for charcoal proceeding _pari passu_ with improved methods of smelting yielded an average output for coke-fed furnaces of 903 tons in 1788. To this epoch belong also Cort's inventions for puddling and rolling (patented 1783-84), which revolutionised the production of bar-iron.