The Ammassalik Eskimo. 463 
offends against the general scientific practice, indeed the contrary is 
the case. I have at times been rather too conscientious than the re- 
verse, with regard to expression of doubt or indication of possible solu- 
tions. Is it possible that Hr. THOMSEN can be quite a stranger to this 
method of treating scientific questions? 
A remarkable object like the whetting iron resembling a drill in 
Ho twm’s collection led me to seek for something similar within the Eskimo 
regions. I believe that any unprejudiced reader, on going through the 
literature of Eskimo ethnography with me, would be willing to admit 
that no implement illustrated there shows a greater degree of simila- 
rity to Ногм’; whetting iron than the drill shaft from Baffin Land to 
which I have referred, and which Hr. THOMSEN has considered worth 
while reproducing in his illustration. The similarity is present with 
regard to the features pointed out, and we have then the difference, 
that the shaft in the one case has a row of narrow grooves, in the other 
a single broader one. That the end of the Greenland implement is blunt, 
and not sharp like that of the drill, could of course easily be explained 
as due to fragmentary state of the object, more especially since the cor- 
responding duplicate in Houm’s collection has a more or less pointed end. 
My critic has evidently felt hurt at my having ventured to suggest 
that the explanation given by Horm of these two pieces in his list, and 
in agreement with JoHAN PETERSEN, might possibly be incorrect, and 
that the original purpose of the implement could perhaps be viewed 
in another light if compared with related forms from other regions, 
as for instance the drill from Baffin Land. This was only intended as 
a modest suggestion, which might eventually lead to an explanation 
of the question as to how these unique Greenland implements had come 
to their remarkable appearance. Naturally, I never intended to put 
forward any emphatic denial of the correctness of the explanation al- 
ready handed down, nor was it my purpose to give any final explana- 
tion as to the original use to which the implements had been put!. 
With regard to the “whetting stone” in my book, which Hr. Тном- 
SEN, despite my doubts, maintains to be of iron and not of stone, whereas 
I myself, after seeing and handling the object in the Museum, came to 
the conclusion that it was of stone, I see no reason to carry discussion 
further in these pages. But the matter might well be deserving of further 
investigation. 
p. 398—99. — Hr. THOMSEN at times, in his eagerness to pick out 
quotations from my book, uses my words as his own. In this case he 
1 Hr. THOMSEN has himself elsewhere taken a similar liberty; on p. 429 (ad 
Fig. 231 a) he expresses a doubt as to a statement made by G. Horm. The 
implement noted by Horm as a “skin сгеазег” Hr. Тномзем here prefers 
to regard as a ‘‘toggle” (his words are: “it was, however, doubtless in- 
tended as a toggle on some line”). 
