INTRODUCTION 
ow that the geographical survey of Greenland is drawing to a 
N close, by means of which survey we have arrived at a primary 
knowledge of the distribution of land and water, of the formation of 
the surface, of the extension of the inland ice, this knowledge is 
becoming the basis of new problems and new questions, the correct 
answers to which will, to a certain extent, depend upon more accu- 
rate surveys being taken. This holds good of a series of problems 
which directly or indirectly relate to the extent of the inland ice or 
variations of same. 
It will, however, always be a difficult thing to find people with 
the necessary professional training willing to undertake the more 
accurate surveys. The young men who have the time and opportu- 
nity to travel in Greenland have, as a rule, only received a general 
theoretical education as regards mathematical and nautical subjects, 
and they thus lack not only the theoretical, but in particular also 
the special practical knowledge of survey work which will be requisite 
in this instance. 
This theoretical knowledge, as adjusted to the objects of which 
in the first place I am thinking, need not be very deep. On the 
other hand it is not very easy to acquire, because the existing text- 
books aim at giving a different and much more exhaustive training 
whereas they do notat all, as regards certain questions, mention the 
methods which are most suitable for arctic conditions. A thorough 
theoretical knowledge acquired through forced studies, which have 
not had the chance to become rooted by means of practical training 
will, however, be of no great use. At best the cartographer when 
arriving in Greenland and being left entirely to his own resources, 
will rather quickly realize “that theory and practice are widely diffe- 
rent things”, and that in order to do part of the work which he set 
out to do, he must emancipate himself from his cherished theories 
and, instead of that, have recourse to his commonsense. But a sudden 
transition of this kind is not easily made, at any rate not without 
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