474 WILLIAM THALBITZER. 
their intrinsic insignificance is intended to be obscured by the prolixity 
with which they are set forth. 
It will here suffice to observe, regarding р. 41813, that Hr. Тном- 
SEN’s list of so-called corrections consists for the most part of something 
other than what is generally understood by this favourite term of his, 
as already indicated in the foregoing (p. 441). Here we find in profusion 
the supplementary information from the inventory lists of the Museum, 
which I ought to have received long since. 
I do not, however, intend here to go into the question as to whether 
this or that particular point on which Hr. THOMSEN is pleased to touch 
has been “disturbed” or “undisturbed by such hindrances as he 
claims to have met with in the Museum” (the expression used by Hr. 
TuomsEN р. 418). I prefer to refrain from further discussion, and leave 
Hr. Тномзех to his monologue in his own particular wilderness. 
V. The Museum Critic and his Allies. 
р. 422 ff. — Hr. Тномзем has here evidently found an ally in his 
superior officer — if indeed the case should not rather be stated as the 
reverse. On this page, and those immediately following, I perceive a 
reply from the Director of the Ethnographical Department. The hands 
are the hands of Esau, but the voice is distinctly Jacob's. 
But the fact that the Director has thus succeeded in publishing 
his retort in a paper apparently written by his subordinate, does not 
render his observations any more correct. I still maintain my stand- 
point as heretofore, and would merely add, that I am surprised at the 
importance which the Museum attaches to my brief remarks of 19127, 
р. 422—423. — My statement to the effect that only a part of the _ 
Greenland collections “are said to have been set up in cases” i. e. exhi- 
bited, calls forth a whole page of disclaimer from the Museum official, 
with two notes and a full page illustration — which last I have not 
seen up to time of writing. The defence here is the more remarkable 
from the fact of its commencing, as far as I can make out, with a con- 
cession: the Museum authority admits “the exception of supplementary 
specimens and fragments from the finds made on the sites of Eskimo 
villages which are placed in the window cupboards” — in other words, 
it is acknowledged that a part of the material lies in the closed and locked 
cupboards beneath the windows. The scientist visiting the Museum 
could not divine the existence of this material, unless informed of it 
1 This portion of my book was printed in 1912, but the entire work was 
not published until 1914. — The remarks are cited here p. 438. 
