The Angmagsalik Eskimo. 417 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
We have in the foregoing considered various typical instances of 
Mr. THALBITZER’S peculiar methods of dealing with museum material 
and with such sources of information as are afforded by previously 
published works. We have seen that he is not always thoroughly familiar 
with the subjects of which he treats, and that his lack of proper quali- 
fication in this respect also makes itself apparent in his new edition of 
Hozm’s work, included in the same volume; that he is apt to be remarkably 
inaccurate in quoting his authorities, and inclined now and then to 
formulate far-fetched conclusions on the basis of inadequate observation. 
All questions such as might form the subject of scientific discussion 
have been purposely omitted here, only indisputable errors being dealt 
with. Mere inaccuracies of the mental process and of exposition have 
also been passed over. By way of illustration, and to save the reader, 
if possible, from overmuch pondering upon obscure passages, a single 
instance of the Author’s style may here be given. 
With regard to Capt. Amprup’s find of the so-called “dead house” 
at Nualuk, we read, on p. 323; “The objects found were first brought 
by boat down to Ammassalik, where several of them were recognised 
as belongmg to a man, who with some other families had journeyed 
northwards two years previous to Houm’s arrival, without any- 
thing bemg heard of the whole party later. The circumstances atten- 
ding the discovery indicated, that the natives (over 30) had been over- 
come by a catastrophe, hunger or more probably poisoning from rotten 
meat”. 
And immediately after: "They had not gone much more than 80 
miles from their tribal relatives, which agrees with the fact, that 
the ruin found was of recent date in its appearance. Although 
the collection found in the ruin originated from the time before the 
arrival of Europeans, the contents showed distinct signs of an indirect 
connection with European culture”. (Here follow some examples). “In 
other respects, it confirms in every way the typological characteristics 
of the Ammassalik culture, which we knew from the Horm collection. 
For example, there is a precise agreement between the forms of the 
harpoon heads in the two collections, so that we become convinced, 
that. the types of harpoons, contained in the Horm collec- 
tion, had been fixed and predominant in this region pro- 
bably for many generations”. 
It is not easy to see why the harpoon heads carried by a man setting 
out from Angmagsalik in 1882 should be expected to differ in any es- 
sential degree from those obtained by Horm at the same place in 1884. 
The sentence: “They had not gone much more than 80 miles from 
their tribal relatives, which agrees with the fact, that the ruin found 
was of recent date in its appearance” likewise furnishes food for thought. 
It would surely seem obvious, that the farther the party went, the later 
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