In order to avoid this sparking, every local instrument in the British Postal Telegraph Department has a " spark " coil connected across the terminals of the electromagnet.
All screw terminals are clearly marked for easy installation.
He found, as others have dune, that if a battery, dynamo or induction coil has its terminals connected to the earth at two distant places, a system of electric currents flows between these points through the crust of the earth.
If the current is interrupted or alternating, and if a telephone receiver has its terminals connected to a separate metallic circuit joined by earth plates at two other places to the earth, not on the same equipotential surface of the first circuit, sounds will be heard in the telephone due to a current passing through it.
Instead of inserting the sensitive tube between the receiving antenna and the earth, he inserted the primary coil of a peculiar form of oscillation transformer and connected the terminals of the tube to the secondary circuit of the transformer.