Rutherford used this detector to make evident the passage of an electric or Hertzian wave for half a mile across Cambridge, England.
Fleming, " A Note on a Form of Magnetic Detector for Hertzian Waves adapted for Quantitative Work," Proc. Roy.
Fleming, The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy (London, 1906), chap. vii.; also Cantor Lectures on Hertzian wave telegraphy, Lecture iv., Journ.
Starting from an observation of Marconi's, a number of interesting facts have been accumulated on the absorbing effect of sunlight on the propagation of long Hertzian waves through space, and on the disturbing effects of atmospheric electricity as well as upon the influence of earth curvature and obstacles of various kinds interposed in the line between the sending and transmitting stations.4 Electric wave telegraphy has revolutionized our means of communication from place to place on the surface of the earth, making it possible to communicate instantly and certainly between places separated by several thousand miles, whilst The Electrician, 1904, 5 2, p. 407, or German Pat.
It is now generally recognized that Hertzian wave telegraphy, or radio-telegraphy, as it is sometimes called, has a special field of operations of its own, and that the anticipations which were at one time excited by uninformed persons that it would speedily annihilate all telegraphy conducted with wires have been dispersed by experience.