The Ohio Naturalist, 



and Journal of Science 



PUBLISHED BV 



The Biological Club of the Ohio State University. 

 Volume XV. FEBRUARY, 1915. No. 4. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Smith— Efficacy of Lightning Rods 437 



LiNNELL— Wild and Cultivated Cloveis of Ohio 443 



Essentials of College Botany 448 



Waltox— Coll Division and the Formation of Paramylou in Euglena oxyuris 



Sch marda " 449 



McAvoY— Meeting of the Biologieal Club . . 452 



The Ferns of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania 452 



EFFICACY OF LIGHTNING RODS. 



J. Warren Smith. 



FIRE LOSSES. 



It is stated on good authority that in the United States fire 

 costs over S500 a minute. The National Fire Prevention Associa- 

 tion of New York states that fire losses and the cost of fire pro- 

 tection amounts to $450,000,000 in the United States each year. 

 This is $850 a minute. 



Fire Losses Due to Lightning. — The Wisconsin Fire Marshal 

 says that lightning in this country destroys more property than 

 matches, sparks, and kerosene together, and more than any 

 other cause, except defective flues. 



Figures gathered from the reports of the State Fire Marshals 

 in Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio, for 1913, indicate that the number of 

 fires due to lightning was one-sixth of the number from all causes 

 and the loss by lightning one-eleventh of the total fire loss. 



In the summer of 1914, the writer gathered statistics from 

 121 Mutual Fire Insurance Companies operating in 15 different 

 States, largely in the central part of the country. These statistics 

 show that in 1913 the total number of buildings burned from any 

 cause was 1,174. During the same year S09 buildings were 

 struck by lightning and damaged and 252 struck by lightning and 

 burned. This indicates nearly as many buildings struck by light- 

 ning as were burned from any cause, but that the number burned 



Read at the Ohio Academy of Science Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, 

 November 27, 1914. 



437 



[uJ 1 L I B R A i*v Y j 2c 



