456 WILLIAM THALBITZER. 
in the Library of our Museum Department which I have long since grown 
to regard as beyond my reach). Ås it is, however, I never aimed at giving 
other or more than what I have given in this respect, and I think I may 
fairly claim that my selection as it stands is extensive enough. Should 
I, however, have overlooked any source offering valuable ethnogra- 
phical information, the burden of proof lies with the critic who main- 
tains this is the fact; Hr. THOMSEN makes no attempt at proving such 
to be the case. . 
Hr. THOMSEN is therefore wrong in endeavouring to make it appear 
that I had in reality aimed at giving a survey of all earlier sources of 
knowledge as to the lands on either side of Davis Straits (“attempting 
to give a synopsis of early works” р. 3914) and thereafter slighting the 
sources given, six in all, as “a very scanty and casual selection”. We 
have here a repetition of the same misleading method in accordance 
with which he seeks on p. 383f. (cf. p. 448), to disparage my plan of work 
by proclaiming his own erroneous idea of what the “task entrusted 
to the editor” really was, and, by comparing the actual contents with 
this arbitrary scheme of his own, to prove the existence of “shorteomings” 
and “confusion”. 
Hr. THOMSEN speaks of my methods (“a certain doubt as to the 
results which may be arrived at by such methods”) as if he considered 
the correctness of a method a safeguard against slips and printers’ er- 
rors. It must at least be admitted, that my method has after all led 
to a certain positive result, whereas Hr. THOMSEN’S has up to the pre- 
sent produced nothing but a negative criticism of my work. The very 
contemptuous words in which he speaks of my book appear to indicate 
a high degree of self-confidence, and hint at a method of quite another 
sort, of which he is the perfect master, and which is to be made mani- 
fest in his own coming work. When this appears, he will have had a 
certain amount of practice in examining “thoroughly, point by point” 
the whole of my book; we may thus, it would seem, be justified in ex- 
pecting that his, in contrast to mine, will not invite such summary 
condemnation as “loosely written”; “not particularly readable”; and 
the like. | 
The History of Ammassalik. 
p. 393—394. — Here the Museum official brings forward a note 
from his inventory lists, referring to an object procured in South Green- 
land 1849 and stated as coming from Ammassalik (“Angmarselik’). 
Thus we are now informed, for the first time, that the name of this place 
was known to a Dane in Greenland prior to the middle of the last cen- 
tury, about 35 years before any Dane had reached there. This secret 
has been well preserved at the Museum until now. 
In this connection I may add, that the inhabitants of the same 
part of the East Coast are already mentioned in the literature of the 
