What was the new kind of power in the early 1800s? It was ______.

(11)In the early 1800s a new kind of power changed transportation and trade along tile Mississippi River. This power was steam. People already knew how to use steam engines to run machines. Some people wanted to move boats in the same way. The first steamboat to travel on the Mississippi was the "New Orleans". (12)It made its first trip 18It was a great success, and by 1819 there were 191 steamboats traveling on the river.
   (13)In the past, the farmers whose products went to other parts of the country used the steamboats. (14)The manufacturers whose trade depended on cheap and easy transportation used the steamboats, too. (15)Today many tourists come to travel on the steamboats, while manufacturers and farmers no longer use them and turn to other ways for transportation. So the application of steamboats has changed now.