Appendix to the Angmagsalik Eskimo. 3 



in 1656, to "découvrir quelque nouveau commerce", which may 

 possibly account for his not having landed where other navigators 

 were accustomed to put in. At the end of June, he arrived in Davis 

 Strait, "d'où étant entré dans une rivière qui commence au soixante 

 quatrième degré et dix minutes de la ligne tirant vers le Nord, it fit 

 voile jusques au septante deuxième sous lequel la terre que nous 

 allons décrire est située". 



It is this manner of dealing with his sources in Hr. Thalbitzer's 

 work, which compels me to feel "a certain doubt as to the results 

 which may be arrived at by such methods", and which renders it 

 necessary to read his defence with the same amount of caution as his 

 original work. 



On p. 457, Hr. Thalbitzer observes : "Mikeeki's waterscoop No. 213 

 in the Petersen collection, which Hr. Thomsen declares to be of the 

 same type, had — if I remember rightly — but one lateral hole". 

 Surely it would have been more natural for the author to convince 

 himself as to the correctness of his opinion by examination of the 

 specimen itself. He would then have discovered, that his memory, 

 on which he too often relies, had once more played him false : The 

 piqce has two holes. 



This is what I understand by his "peculiar methods of dealing 

 with Museum material". And since Hr. Thalbitzer has "no idea as 

 to what may be Hr. Thomsen's method of dealing with Museum 

 material" (p. 445) I may answer, that I have no other method than 

 what I take to be that generally employed ; viz, to study the items 

 "in the hand" and make notes on the spot, instead of sitting at 

 home and writing about them from a photograph, or, as in the present 

 case, from mere recollection. When Hr. Thalbitzer writes (p. 439) 

 "I had curtailed my visits to that department as far as I honestly 

 could", he is using too mild a term. It is plain from the facts that 

 he should have written "far more than I honestly could". A more 

 extended study would doubtless have furthered that '.'inner metamor- 

 phosis of development" which he suspects me (p. 471) of undervaluing. 

 But indeed I wish Hr. Thalbitzer may attain yet richer development ; 

 I have merely hinted that it would be well if the very earliest stages 

 were suffered to proceed within doors, and not made public as litera- 

 ture (cf. my paper, p. 420 et seqq.). 



On p. 448, we read : "Now what does Hr. Thomsen know as to 

 the task which was entrusted to me at my return from my investiga- 

 tions in East Greenland ?" I have, however, distinctly stated (p. 384, 

 note 2) that I had my information from Hr. Thalbitzer's own work of 

 1914, p. I — II, which I naturally took to be a reliable source. I am 

 now, of course, constrained to accept the author's assurance that this 

 is not the case. 



On p. 387, note 2, I cited an instance showing how difficult it is 



