The Industrial Revolution generated a vast array of inventions that could be applied to the capture of fish. The most obvious of these was mechanical power. A boat powered by a steam engine or an internal combustion engine could be used to tow non-motorized boats to the fishing ground and to carry catches to market while the fishing boats remained at sea. When the fishing boat itself had mechanical power, the engine could supplement or even take the place of wind and muscle to carry fishers to their prey and power the boat as a fishing gear was being set or towed behind the boat. Mechanical power made it possible to think of using old fishing gears on a larger scale, modifying old fishing gears or even introducing new ones to take greater advantage of the potential it created. At the same time more efficient pumps, more powerful forms of lighting, and more powerful explosives created still more possibilities for exploiting marine resources. There was nothing automatic about the adoption of these new technologies, however. Whether fishers or investors made use of new technology largely depended on whether it brought sufficient profits to outweigh the cost of acquiring and operating it. This in turn depended on how much could be caught with the new technology, the size of the market, and the price of the product in that market. When an official suggested to a fisher in Kelantan “that he should buy an outboard motor which was not very dear” so that he could return home with his catch early in the morning rather than having to wait until noon for the sea breeze to come or to battle a headwind, “he told me he had insufficient money to purchase one”. On the other side of the Malay Peninsula one fish dealer experimented with a motorized fish carrier but gave it up after a year “as not sufficiently remunerative”, while another whose “motor boat was not decked and so dangerous when the sea grew even moderately rough” abandoned the experiment after a few months. In these circumstances states often took the lead in experimenting with new technologies or supporting private investors who wished to do so. The extent to which they did this varied greatly, however.