The Ohio fhifaturalist, 
and Journal of Science 
PUBLISHED BY 
The Biological Club of the Ohio State University. 
MB*/ 
KSW y 
&QTANI 
Volume XV. FEBRUARY. 1915. 
No. 4. 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
Smith—E fficacy of Lightning Rods. -137 
Linnell— Wild and Cultivated Clovers of Ohio. 443 
Essentials of College Botany. 448 
Walton—C ell Division and the Formation of Paramylon in Euglena oxyuris 
Schmarda. 449 
McAvoy—M eeting of the Biological 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 $500 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 809 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 
