The Ammassalik Eskimo. 477 
This question however, was altogether of minor importance to 
myself, and I have never expressed any dissatisfaction with the Direc- 
tor’s choice of a photographer. 
p. 424—425. — The Director is evidently at great pains to show 
— as he repeatedly attempts to hint throughout these pages — that 
I enjoyed, as a matter of course, the most complete freedom in his Mus- 
eum. And here we approach very near to the crucial point. 
Trifles, trifles; all these questions as to collections more or less 
fully on view, their arrangement, the time at which my work was per- 
mitted to commence, the choice of a photographer, and so on; things 
unimportant now as they were then. Whether I was granted scant or 
abundant time for the work to be done, if the light was good, bad or 
indifferent; all these are points of subordinate interest, and in part de- 
pendent upon personal estimate. 
As a matter of course, I submitted punctiliously to all restrietions 
and regulations which were then in force at this Museum, and to which 
Hr. THOMSEN frequently refers in his critique. They were neither few 
nor inconsiderable in comparison with what I have experienced else- 
where; far from it?! Even so, however, the regulations, however strict, 
could hardly render my task altogether impossible. My ethnographical 
writings show that I did as a matter of fact succeed in getting nearly 
all the original photographs I wanted of the Greenland collections. What 
they do not show, is the price I had to pay for the acquisition of them. 
If I was forced to desist from my work before it was completed, 
the reason is entirely independent of these impersonal regulations. 
But here we verge upon the heart of the question. 
A scientific authority proceeding upon principles calculated to 
destroy the mutual confidence which should exist between workers 
in the same field is and must ever be condemnable. — 
р. 126. — Jam res ad triarios vent. Hr. THOMSEN here seeks refuge in a 
coalition with the three he mentions. 
They must be proud of the alliance. 
1 In the ethnographical Department of the Copenhagen Museum I had 
access to the collections only during the winter halfyear, and only three 
days a week, between 12 and 4. From May throughout the summer 
nothing was allowed to be removed from the cases, general visiting days 
being then more numerous than in winter. The objects had to be removed 
by one of the Museum staff, and the items I wanted had to be requisitioned 
in writing or pointed out the day before. Only one shelf at a time might 
be removed, and each day everything had to be put back in exactly the 
same order before 4 o’clock. etc. etc. 
