438 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. XV, No. 4 t 
by lightning was less than one-fourth of the total lost by fire. The 
loss on the buildings burned or damaged by lightning was about 
one-third of the total fire loss. 
Loss by Lightning Largely in Rural Districts.—In the central 
part of the country the loss and damage by lightning is far greater 
in the country than in the cities. The Indiana Fire Marshal 
states that 75% of all lightning losses occur in the country, which 
contains but 47% of the population. Also that in 1913, 92% of 
all bams damaged by lightning were in the country and that 
09% of all bam losses were total. The Ohio Fire Marshal says 
that of 416 lightning fires in 1913, 319 were in bams. One 
insurance agent in Missouri reports that in 17 years the losess due 
to lightning on bams has been SO,000 greater than by fire from 
other causes. 
Lightning.--Lightning is an electric spark on a tremendous 
scale. It occurs between clouds more frequently than between 
cloud and earth. Flashes last from one-one-hundred-thousandth 
to one-five-thousandth of a second. 
Damage by lightning is mechanical as well as thermal. Not 
only is damage done by main discharges, but currents are induced 
in near-by metal objects and conductors and these often produce 
additional damage. Fires may be started in inflammable material 
between two nearly parallel rods or wires by these induction 
effects. Cases cited are between a fan shaft and a drive shaft 
bearing in a flour mill. Also between wires on baled hay, and 
between telephone wires and a lightning rod, where it is stated 
that lightning will jump 10 to 15 feet between the lightning 
rod and telephone wire. 
Lightning Rods.—There was a time when lightning rods were 
a fad and the lightning rod agent flourished in the land and 
waxed fat. Because the lightning rod agent insisted on accu¬ 
mulating the good things of the land too rapidly there soon came a 
second period when shot guns were kept loaded and within reach, 
because the lightning rod agent was more to be feared than the 
lightning. And this second period still obtains in some parts 
of this country today. 
But the lightning rods that were up staid up and those that 
had been installed in an honest and correct manner apparently 
furnished protection, while all around them buildings were being 
destroyed by lightning strokes. 
Fire protection agencies, appalled at the immense fire loss, 
have in more recent years turned to the lightning rod as a possible 
aid. Honest lightning rod manufacturing companies have 
insisted that properly erected lightning rods are a protection, 
and professors of physics have told us that lightning rods, when 
continuous from the moist earth to the top of buildings, must aid 
