Ever since Ben Franklin designed the lightning rod as a means of protecting structures from lightning stroke, there has been periodically raised the question of the efficiency of these rods as a means of warding off the bolts from the heavens. Men of eminence in the electrical world have been found arrayed on both sides of the question, and in order to arrive at some well-founded conclusion, the subject was taken up by the weather department. The investigation was conducted by Professor J. Warren Smith, who addressed an open letter to the mutual fire-insurance companies throughout the country, especially those in the rural districts, asking for any information which these organizations might have which might throw some light on the subject. The value of the rods was undoubtedly attested to in the answers, and Benjamin Franklin has received full vindication. In two recent years two hundred mutual companies doing a business of fully $300,000,000 had 1,845 buildings struck by lightning. Of this number only sixty-seven were equipped with lightning rods. So far as could be learned, about thirty-one per cent of the buildings insured by these companies were rodded; hence, if the rods had furnished no protection, the number of rodded buildings struck should have been five hundred and seventy-two instead of sixty-seven. Thus the efficiency of the rods in actually preventing lightning strokes appears to have been about ninety per cent. It may be fairly assumed that a large part of the damage done to the rodded buildings occurred in cases where the rods were improperly installed or in poor condition. Five companies, with over 18,000 buildings insured, of which more than fifty per cent were rodded, reported that they had never had a building burned or even materially damaged by lightning that was equipped with a lightning rod; their records covering periods ranging from thirteen to twenty-five years. Another important fact brought out by Professor Smith’s figures is that when a rodded building is struck by lightning and damaged but not burned down, the average damage is much less than in an unrodded building, viz., ten dollars in the former and twenty-two hundred dollars in the latter. Boy Attempts to Fly; Falls. John Mitchell, aged fourteen, living in the Mount Vernon Road below Evansville, Ind., attempted to rival the birds, and came to grief, with a broken arm. Mitchell made a girder and wings after a pattern in a boy’s book which he bought at a local store. He attempted to glide from the loft of the stable to the ground. The girders were not strong and the wings collapsed. Mitchell fell to the ground and his left arm was broken near the elbow and he suffered slight internal injuries. Sharpening Stones; Their Various Uses.