(sterling) in 1501-1550 to $£ 15.8$ million in 1601-1650, and $£ 231$ million in 1848-1850 (Inikori, 2007, Table 1, p. 74), the combined size of Atlantic markets and the cumulative rate of growth reached a critical mass for the advantageously placed regions (Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and the West Midlands, especially Stafford, to a lesser extent) of the dominant naval power of the Atlantic basin, England, to launch the first Industrial Revolution. The development of the factory system and the new technologies, invented and employed in response to market size and the rate of growth, drastically reduced manufacturing cost per unit of output, while steel and steamship technology slashed the cost of sea transportation and the railroads connected distant interior regions to complete the integration of the economies of the Atlantic basin into one economic system, the Atlantic economy (Inikori, 2007, pp. 77-79).