The Angmagsalik Eskimo. 425 



application in June 1909 for permission to photograph. Here the authori- 

 ties were obliged to defer the desired permission for three months, the 

 Museum being during that time open daily to the public, so that the 

 rooms in question could not be reserved for special work. The fact that 

 Mr. Thalbitzer chose to wait until the 24th of February of the fol- 

 lowing year cannot be laid to the charge of the Museum. 



Mr. Thalbitzer tells us that he employed "a photographer recom- 

 mended by the director" and that the work of photographing was car- 

 ried out "in front of the cases, where the light conditions were not exactly 

 good" and "somewhat hastily owing to the short working hours of the 

 museum". It should here be observed, that although the Museum au- 

 thorities furnished Mr. Thalbitzer with the name of a photographer 

 having considerable experience of photographic work in the Museum, 

 he was perfectly at liberty to engage another had he pleased; further, 

 that the photographer in question has declared in writing that the light 

 was satisfactory, and that the working hours accorded — from 10 or 

 12 to 4 — were fully sufficient to permit of the work being done clearly 

 and well. 



It will thus be seen that Mr. Thalbitzer has had full liberty to 

 prosecute his studies in the Museum, the only restrictions being such 

 as would inveritably arise from the regulations to which every student 

 must necessarily be expected to conform. Since, however, he has been 

 unable to realise the necessity of such restrictions, but has construed 

 them as unfriendliness, and now endeavours to bring the Danish National 

 Museum into ill repute abroad, the Museum authorities are forced to 

 correct and explain the frequently vague and misleading statements in 

 which he expresses himself. Mr. Thalbitzer evidently fails to realise 

 the fact that a Museum accessible to and much visited by the general 

 public cannot altogether set aside the interests of the ordinary visitor 

 in order to serve the convenience of a single investigator. 



Finally, we read: "I regret that such a short measure of interest and 

 friendliness obliged me to renounce a fuller utilization of the rich collec- 

 tions and has thus without doubt reduced the strength of my work". 

 In the face of this repeated accusation, we must once more emphatically 

 assert that Mr. Thalbitzer might to the full have utilised the collec- 

 tions for the purposes of his work, and I will take upon myself to point 

 out, that it was his plain duty as a scientist to utilise the Danish Museum 

 to the highest possible degree, the more so since it is there, and not 

 in the foreign Museums he mentioned, that the material which was to 

 form the subject of his work was to be found. Had he, as he gives his 

 readers to understand, encountered opposition on the part of the Museum 

 in the prosecution of his studies, two courses would have lain open to 

 him: either to request the Committee which had entrusted him with 

 the work to intervene, or to declare that he could not, under the circum- 

 stances, undertake to complete the task. The course which he has adopted : 



