7H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Flirtation in Battak-Land. — The Bat- 

 taks are a people of common origin with 

 the Malays and resembling them in many re- 

 spects, who live along the western coast and 

 in the interior of the island of Sumatra. The 

 district ehiefs form a confederation, the 

 strongest one among them residing near the 

 Toba Lake. They have enjoyed the advan- 

 tages of civilization, are good agriculturists, 

 have an original system of writing, and take 

 care to have their children instructed in such 

 arts and knowledge as they appreciate ; and 

 yet they eat enemies who are taken armed, 

 and criminals of a certain class, and adorn 

 their tombs with obscene figures. As senti- 

 mental people in Western countries practice 

 in a "language of flowers," so the young 

 people of either sex among the Battaks cor- 

 respond by means of a language of leaves. 

 The leaves themselves have no significance, 

 but their names, modified, perhaps, within 

 the bounds of poetic license, indicate or 

 rhyme with the word which the correspond- 

 ent wishes to suggest. Besides leaves, cor- 

 als, bells, ants, and the figures of all sorts of 

 objects are employed for the same purpose. 

 Dr. Van der Tunk, who has studied the Battak 

 language, tells of another method of senti- 

 mental communication among them, by means 

 of quatrains, which are called by them endes 

 or umpana. In these the first tsvo lines are 

 suggested by the language of the leaves, 

 which is employed to suggest their catch- 

 word. They, however, have no particular 

 significance, but lead up to the second pair 

 of lines, in which is embodied the sentiment 

 that the lover wishes to express. To be ex- 

 pert in the use of these endes, it is necessary 

 to know a considerable number of them by 

 heart. The young maidens are usually bet- 

 ter versed in this lore than the young men, 

 and there are often in the Battak villages 

 some who make a business of supplying and 

 interpreting them. It is one of the customs 

 of the people that girls, as soon as they reach 

 a marriageable age, shall leave the houses of 

 their parents and go to live with some other 

 unmarried woman (a widow or grass-widow). 

 A strict surveillance is pretended to be kept 

 over them, which is usually more honored in 

 the relaxation than in the exact observance ; 

 and they are by no means debarred the so- 

 ciety of young men during this period, nor 

 ignorant of the art of flirtation. While occu- 



pied here in weaving mats and making to- 

 bacco-boxes and sirih-baigs, they teach one an- 

 other the endes which they have learned from 

 their grandmothers and other old women, and 

 for retaining which their memories possess 

 enormous capacities. 



Atmospheric Tides.— The question of the 

 tides similar to ocean tides that may be cre- 

 ated in the atmosphere by the moon has en- 

 gaged the attention of many physicists since 

 Newton. The longest series of studies on 

 the subject is that of Eisenlohr, which in- 

 cludes thirty-two thousand observations dis- 

 tributed through twenty -three consecutive 

 years. The author concluded that a certain 

 equalization of atmospheric pressure is pro- 

 duced during a revolution of the moon around 

 the earth. According to M. Maurice Guist, 

 a later observer, the equalization is not 

 brought about by the movement of masses 

 of air, but by a kind of expansion of the 

 atmosphere, which only sets in motion dis- 

 tinct particles of the whole mass. Since, in 

 this way, the density of the air at any given 

 point does not change much during a revo- 

 lution of the moon, the temperature and hy- 

 grometric condition are no more influenced ; 

 neither the barometer nor other meteoro- 

 logical instruments, therefore, give proof of 

 an atmospherio tide, although, in other 

 points of view, the influence of the moon 

 may be well marked by the instruments. 

 The action of the sun must be still weaker 

 than that of the moon. The equalization of 

 pressure, in this view, takes place the more 

 easily as the difference is less between the 

 augmentation and diminution of density. 

 These conditions exist when the regions of 

 less and of greater density are near one 

 another. Thus the equalization can take 

 place at the quadratures rather than the 

 syzygies ; or when the sun and moon are 90° 

 apart their influence is not cumulative as it 

 is at the syzygies. This is fully confirmed 

 by observations. Every culmination of the 

 moon is preceded, for any meridian, by a 

 barometric height inferior to the mean, and 

 is followed by a superior height. The in- 

 crease of pressure after the culmination is 

 explained by the fact that the atmosphere, 

 not being so much sustained by the moon, 

 bears more heavily upon the mercury in the 

 barometer, while the inverse phenomenon 



