Lodge particularly studied the action of electric waves in reducing the resistance of the contact between two metallic surfaces such as a plate and a point, or two balls, and named the device a coherer."
He constructed one form of his coherer of a glass tube a few inches long filled with iron borings or brass filings, having contact plates or pins at the end.
Marconi, however, made the important discovery that if his sensitive tube or coherer had one terminal attached to a metal plate lying on the earth, or buried in it, and the other to an insulated plate elevated at a height above the ground, it could detect the presence of very feeble electric waves of a certain kind originating at a great distance.
If we consider the lines of magnetic force in the neighbourhood of the receiving antenna wire we shall see that they move across it, and thus create in it an electromotive force which acts upon the coherer or other sensitive device associated with it.
The oldest of the class (i) is that generically known as a coherer, the construction of which we have already described.
