444 WILLIAM THALBITZER. 
often run parallel to changes in the language and the Am massalimmiut, in fact, 
have their own particular designations for many of their Eskimo implements 
and utensils (etc)«. 
Finally, then, I agreed to undertake the work, and formulated a 
proposal for a somewhat extended scheme, to include an English transla- 
tion of С. Horm's ethnological work on the. East Greenlanders, together 
with a new description of the most important types of implements in 
his collection. These additions I regarded as a natural link in the whole. 
I commenced my studies with confidence and pleasure. I did not then 
anticipate that my visit to the Ethnographical Department of our Mu- 
seum was to be productive of most bitter disappointment; so much so 
indeed, as to cause me after a brief while to withdraw, in voluntary 
ostracism, from the place. 
It is no secret, that Hr. THOMSEN some years back was commis- 
sioned to publish a description of the material brought home in 1908 
by the Danmark Expedition (the famous voyage of MyLIUS-ERICHSEN 
and his comrades to the unknown regions of North-east Greenland). It 
has hitherto been less generally known, however, that the task in ques- 
tion was first offered to me, viz: at the same time as the Committee 
empowered me to deal with the finds of the Amprur Expedition from 
the central and northern part of East Greenland. As it happened, how- 
ever, the ethnographical collection from the Danmark Expedition had 
in the meantime been handed over to our National Museum (1st De- 
partment), and from that moment, if not before, objections must have 
been raised by the Ethnographical Department against allowing the 
new and valuable acquisition to be dealt with by anyone outside the 
circle of the Museum’s ethnographers. On learning that the ethnogra- 
phers of the Museum were wishful themselves to undertake the descrip- 
tion and publication of this collection from the extreme North-east of 
Greenland, I at once relinquished all claim to the honour, whereby I 
hoped to have removed all possible grounds for friction, and even, it 
might be, to have made a step towards securing the good will of the Mu- 
seum!. 
It was with reference to this situation, that I wrote, in the Intro- 
duction to my Description of the Amdrup Collection from N. E. Green- 
land 1909 (p. 343), as follows: 
“These ‘finds’ have recently been added to. From more northerly districts 
of East Greenland than ever before, MyLius-ERICHSEN and his companions 
on the Danmark Expedition brought back a collection of antiquities. I have 
not yet had an opportunity of seeing this collection which immediately after 
1 Naturally, I should never for a moment have thought of intruding upon 
a scientific domain to which another could with any show of reason ad 
vance a prior claim; I had not the least desire to interfere with the hand- 
ling of ethnographical material already entrusted to other hands. 
