The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1908-03-20
Protection from Lightning.

ated.
Protection from Lightning.
An enormous fire waste that can
with certainty and comparatively
little cost be reduced almost to moth
ing, is that srom lightning. ,nci-
dental to this saving of property
would be.a saving of lives.
For years the violence Of thunder
bolts has been increasing, not be-
cause OF there being a greater mum
Der of storms, but because of our
decorating natures face with high
barns and at the same time remoy-
Ing her lightning rods, the forest
trees. In ten years the lightning
loss in Maine, with $4,000 inhab-
itants, increased from $4,000 to
$123,094. In many other states there
has been as great an increase. THE
farmers mutual insurance companies
Of Ohio, which have over $275,OOO,-
600 at risk, find that their losses
from lightning in the summer are
more than two-thirds as great as
from all other causes for the whole
year. In Michigan the farmers mu-
tual companies lost in 1906 more
than three million from this cause.
The last annual reports of the III
Iowa mutual companies show that
70 per cent of their losses are from
lightning. The Indiana State asso-
citation a year ago discussed a
plan for assessing properly rodded
buildings at a less rate. In the forty
odd buildings represented in this
meeting none had a loss on a rodded
building. A committee from the Ne
braska State association reported
that properly rodded buildings were
never struck. Two ,-1rds of Ne
braska's farm losses are from light
ming.
In a paper before the federation of
Mutual associations of Ohio, Mr.. Gull
yer. secretary of the Union Mutual,
% per cent Of whose losses have
been by lightning said, 1.-TWO dol
lars and a half was the only money
this company yer paid for a damage
to a building that was rodded since
Its organization in 1873, but it was
conceded that the rod was not prop
erly put up" Mr.. Culver told Of
the lightning Rod Mutual Fire -ro-.
tective Association of Seville, mo,
which began with half a million at
risk in July last; now 1t has $1,2vv.-
600 and has not paid a cent of loss.
HE insisted that mutual companies
must make q less assessment where
the buildings are rodded or lose ...e
cream of their business to
which insure rodded buildings only.
Increased knowledge of electricity
which has made 1t possible now to
transmit powerful charges of it by
cable for commercial use, has pro-
duced scient4Ac lightning rods. Sir
Oliver Lodge, in a recent lecture be-
fore the Birmingham, England, ar
chitectural association, reported MS
experiments with lightning condnc-
tors while the chairman of British.
Lightning rod committee. He said
that the rods in use prior to 1888
were Inadequate because electric in
erta, or momentum, had not at that
time been discovered.
lightning rods today are maze
with a knowledge of the character of
OF the work they have to do, and all
scientists and insurance men agree
that they are a protection if O
erly put up.
The increased demand for rod so
increased the demand Of local agents
last summer that competition has
probably made the price of rods fair.
There is no rod now offered in this
state that is not effective.
The prejudice against lightning
rods which grew out Of the practice
of the travelling agents who thirty
odd years ago covered the country
with ~tnenective rods and written con-
tracts which were often altogether
too effective. is being removed. Now
the agent is a resident of the same
neighborhood as his customer or, at
farthest, an adjoining county and
must play fair or quit the business.
II an agent should offer a tricky
contract or a rod which would not be
effective the newspapers would print
g bulletin OF the fire marshal which
would stop its sale within q week.
. Frank "A. Graft
State Fire Marshal.
The Saloon.