410 Thomas Thomsen. 



explanation improbable" — ■ which honest admission is in perfect accord 

 with the fact. 



But Mr. Thalbitzer does not stop here. He goes on to say 

 "it is curious to find a bone implement of precisely the same construc- 

 tion, a towing or drag toggle, which is also stated to be in the Stock- 

 holm Riksmuseum, namely in A. E. Nordenskiöld's collection from 

 Alaska, (the Vega Expedition)". Once again, we are led by the lon- 

 gest way to no advantage. The new result is based on a single specimen 

 only, and the expression "stated to be" suggests that the Editor has 

 not even seen this one himself. Had he cared to look through the 

 West Greenland section of the National Museum, he would there have 

 found a number of such "curiosities" whereby the error might have been 

 avoided, and Mr. Thalbitzer himself spared the necessity of making 

 the new admission: "The hinged toggle has thus obtained here quite 

 a different use from that we know in East Greenland, but the con- 

 struction of the head is also of quite a different form". 



The only point of similarity now remaining is thus the fact that 

 in both cases two pieces of bone are joined together by means of a peg 

 about which they can turn; this can, however, scarcely be regarded as 

 a sufficient basis upon which to determine the class to which an im- 

 plement belongs. 



CONTENTS LISTS OF THE COLLECTIONS. 



Pages 322—23 and 743—53 of the work are devoted to lists of the 

 contents of some collections. The reader will naturally expect the col- 

 lections in question to be those mentioned on the title-page of the book: 

 as "Ethnographical collections from East Greenland, (Angmagsalik 1 and 

 Nualik) made by G. Holm, G. Amdrup and J. Petersen and described 

 by W. Thalbitzer". This is, however not the case. Of the collection 

 on which the whole work is based, to wit, Holm's, no list is given; the 

 Editor of this English work refers his readers to the Danish edition of 

 Holm's book, which according to the Editor's own statement, is out 



1 On the title-page of this section Mr. Thalbitzer writes "Angmagsalik" 

 according to Kleinschmidt's orthography; on the page following, however, 

 (p. 321, Note 1) he asserts that "the East Greenland form of this name is 

 Ammattalik or Ammattaling". It might perhaps have been reasonable 

 enough to have introduced one or other of these latter forms; it is less 

 easy to realise, however, upon what grounds the Editor has, in the text of 

 the work, supplanted the tradional form Angmagsalik by the term Am- 

 massalik, which, according to the linguist himself, is the phonetic form of 

 the word as used in the dialect of central West Greenland. 



