A water-returning engine was an early form of stationary steam engine, developed at the start of the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the 18th century. The first beam engines did not generate power by rotating a shaft but were developed as water pumps, mostly for draining mines. By coupling this pump with a water wheel, they could be used to drive machinery. The steam engine was not, as widely held, the cause of the Industrial Revolution, but rather arose as a result of it. The primary power source of the Revolution, certainly in the 18th century, was the water wheel, not the steam engine. (en)