398 Thomas Thomsen. 



sharpening knives". He might even have read, what he himself had 

 written, in his own English edition of the same work, the following pas- 

 sage: "A whetting iron inserted in a handle of wood is used for grinding 

 knives with (fig. 218c)" 1 ■ — ■ referring, it will be noted, to this very figure. 

 These two instances, then, the water vessel and the whetting irons, 

 serve to confirm the truth of the Editor's own very apt remark, which 

 might well be taken as a motto for any ethnographical work based on 

 museum studies: "It is a good thing to have a photograph of an ethno- 

 graphic object, but still better to study it in the hand, view it from all 

 sides, and possibly make a sketch of it 2 ". 



IRON-BLADED CHISEL. 



The whetting iron is ethnologically interesting as representing a 

 certain type of implement; the importance of various iron tools occa- 

 sionally found, on the other hand, lies in the fact of their illustrating 

 the manner in which odd scraps of iron accidentally acquired are utilised 

 by the finder to serve his own particular needs. 



A specimen of such more occasional implements is the little iron 

 chisel, fastened to a handle by thongs, which is shown in Thalbitzee's 

 Fig. 189, but there erroneously described as a hammer. 



The illustration in itself should suffice to show the inaccuracy of 

 this. The position in which the blade is fixed to the handle alone renders 

 it impossible. The tool might with more excuse have been described 

 as an axe. The blade is, however, quite small and light, with a distinct 

 chisel edge at the one end, and evident marks of having been driven 

 by a hammer at the other. All this might have been discovered by mere 

 observation. 



Here again, however, other sources of information were likewise 

 open to the Author had he cared to use them. The tool in question is, 

 in the first place, like the whetting iron just mentioned, shown in an 

 illustration of that very work of which Mr. Thalbitzer's book is a new 

 and improved edition, and is there described as a chisel 3 . And in the 

 second place, Mr. Thalbitzer would, as a linguist, have had excellent 

 opportunities of discovering, by actual inquiry among the Eskimo them- 

 selves, what was the true purpose of the implement. As to this, he remarks, 

 on p. 678: "The word ilageen which I have erroneously given for a hammer 

 like that seen in Fig. 189 means ,a wedge for splitting wood', possibly 

 also a celt, a chisel". And we are further told: "The Eskimo, who was 

 shown the illustration of a hammer in Holm's book, evidently considered 



1 Thalb. II, p. 35. 



2 Thalb. II, p. 327. 



3 Medd. om Grønland, vol. 10. Plate XVIII g. 



