440 WILLIAM THALBITZER. 
I intimated, on the last page of the work, that I understood wherein they 
chiefly lay. My consciousness of this, however, did not cause me very 
great anxiety, as I presumed that the errors would prove to be com- 
paratively insignificant from the ethnographical point of view, nor have 
I since found any reason to think otherwise. 
Hr. THOMSEN insists, for his part, that the Museum authorities 
cannot disregard these failings, the majority of which might easily have 
been avoided if I had gone to the Museum with a “list of the numbers” 
i.e. the inventory numbers with which the various objects are marked 
(p. 387, cf p. 385). What is here implied, of course, is that I had neg- 
lected to avail myself of the inventory lists. 
In all the museums which I visited abroad, the inventory lists were 
courteously placed at my disposal; in some cases even before I had 
asked to see them. On seeking the assıstance of our own Museum at 
home, however, I found that this source of knowledge, as regards the 
Ethnographical Department, constituted a sort of esoteric artesian well, 
closed down and sealed with seven seals, its contents only to be elicited 
in drops,-and upon written application to the Director’s Office. For 
reasons intimately connected with the crucial point before mentioned, 
I did not wish to pursue my studies further at the Museum after the 
work of photographing the East Greenland specimens was completed. 
The acquisition of these photographs I considered indispensable, as the 
minimum upon which I could undertake the task of preparing a book 
on the East Greenland Collections, and I regret that I was forced to 
be content with such a minimum. 
Now omitting certain portions of Hr. THOMSEN’S paper, which 
consists for the most part of longwinded fantasias upon themes from 
mine, we find that the remainder actually does give a quantity of good 
and concise information, drawn directly from these very lists. His paper 
shows, in several instances, that such ethnographical ledgers really may 
be useful to the student, not least on account of the valuable informa- 
tion they frequently contain as to the origin and purpose of specimens. 
Hr. THOMSEN’S paper thus indirectly serves to show how much I 
have lost by venturmg within the precincts of our Ethnographical Mu- 
seum, where I felt myself, only too soon, constrained to desist from 
further study. 
As, however, the effects undoubtedly extended far beyond the 
mere weakening of my museum work, the scientific loss involved cannot 
be gauged by Hr. THomseEn’s indications. I am at any rate unable to 
accept his judgement concerning the shortcomings, real or conjectural, 
of my book, as an adequate estimate of the detriment suffered. In ex- 
pressing my regret that the attitude of the Museum had thus “without 
doubt reduced the strength of my work” (my book 1914 p. 329) I was, 
it is true, also referring to such failings as have since been pointed out 
in Hr. THOMSEN’s paper (he has thus, in a way, on behalf of his Depart- 
