Rivers provided the power for water. Steam engines were a kind of hack to allow you to run pump powered machines away from rivers, but this was a tiny proportio

Rivers provided the power for water. Steam engines were a kind of hack to allow you to run pump powered machines away from rivers, but this was a tiny proportion of the first part of the industrial Revolution. And perfect streams weren’t required, just water falling a certain height. Headraces and tailraces were dug to distribute water power to places nearby but not directly on a river. I’m thinking of cities like Minneapolis built on rivers whose industry (milling grain to flour) was powered precisely by such water-driven machines.