442 WILLIAM THALBITZER. 
ll. Promises and Results. 
My work has thus given rise to the publication —- by the Ethno- 
graphical Department of the Museum — of a paper, 55 pages long, con- 
cerning the Greenland collections and other matters first dealt with by 
me. Truly a sudden ebullition of interest in the ethnography of Green- 
land! This is in fact the first time that one of the Department's officials 
has issued a work containing scientific details concerning the Greenland 
material and utilising the inventory lists. Save for the scientifically 
insignificant “catalogues” which are sold for sixpence at the door, nothing 
has hitherto been made public by the Department with regard to the 
large collections from Greenland preserved in the Museum, and chiefly 
of ancient date. The earliest departmental effort in this direction is 
now seen in Hr. THOMSEN's critical essay on my ethnographical works, 
whereby his privileged position, with immediate access to the sources, 
at last proves of some use to the cause of science. 
The publication of my book has evidently fired the blood of our 
museum-ethnographers, and Hr. THOMSEN rises as their spokesman. 
It will be somewhat of a mystery to most, why Hr. THOMSEN in 
the heading of his paper should wish to alter the title which I had given 
my book; to wit, “The Ammassalik Eskimo”, not, as in his orthography, 
“Angmagsalık”. My spelling is based upon long years of experience in 
the Greenland tongue, and I had good reasons for preferring the form 
chosen to that which happens to be authorised. Hr. THoMSEN’s heading 
“The Angmagsalik Eskimo” gives a misleading alteration of my title, 
not to mention its seeming to claim for his little appendix the position 
of a counterpart to the work issued by myself concerning the tribe in 
question. 
As to how far Hr. THomsen’s “Notes and Corrections” furnish any 
grounds for supposing that he could have carried out the task which 
fell to my lot with better result than I have attained under the condi- 
tions prevailing and during the time available, this I leave others to 
decide. 
Hr. THOMSEN must be content to admit that my work is in reality 
the first broad survey of Greenland ethnography in existence. He him- 
self apparently does not know what it is to have published an ethno- 
graphical work, or indeed a considerable work on any subject, and he 
does not appear to realise how much more difficult is the work of a pio- 
neer than that of a critic scrutinising along his track. 
It may, however, not be out of place to call to mind how it was 
that I came to undertake a work of this specially ethnographical cha- 
racter. 
