Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 711 



lieve, that I should have better fortune in solving the problem of 

 the routes of immigration of the Eskimo tribes. But even if we 

 cannot consider the following suggestions as more than provisional 

 working hypotheses, these will nevertheless be of the same use as 

 all similar, which have exercised their influence in other spheres of 

 science. They tend to sharpen the means of criticism and the accu- 

 racy of the science in question and lead to a coordination of the 

 material, which in itself will not be useless, even if the theories have 

 to be given up later. It will especially be of interest to examine, 

 what the detailed information collected can be used for when ar- 

 ranged in such perspectives. The working hypothesis giл^es a measure 

 whereby one can judge of the value of the details and the coordina- 

 tion of the details will in itself always retain a certain value, when 

 it brings clearness in the matter, though the hypothesis may have 

 to be replaced later by a better. 



The following discussion of the migrations should come properly 

 after the "résumé and results", since it is in part their conclusion, 

 but for the reader it can just as well serve as the preparation for 

 these. 



Both H. Rink and G. Holm believed, that the Ammassalik district 

 had obtained its inhabitants from the north. In setting up this view 

 they simply followed the consequences of the theory already put 

 forward earlier by Rink, that East Greenland as a whole had received 

 its inhabitants from the north round Greenland. For the distance 

 from coast to coast betw^een the northernmost Eskimo met MÙth and 

 between the ruins of their houses found in the north on both coasts 

 was known to be so short, that this theory of the immigration to East 

 Greenland seemed to have much in its favour^). After Holm brought 



1) Rink (1886) pp. 144—145. Holm (1888) pp. 153—154, in this work pp. 124—125. 

 Sören Hansen (1888) p. 8, in this work p. 155. — Rink had already twenty years 

 previously put forward his theory regarding the immigration of the Eskimo 

 north round Greenland to the east coast^ namely (1866) p. 44, cf. (1871) p. 153. 

 The first suggestions of this idea are even earlier and originate without doubt 

 from meetings between arctic explorers and travellers in Greenland in the fifties, 

 after Rink (from 1848) had been connected with the land as a Danish official. 

 We find this idea mentioned for the first time in Mac Clintock (1859) pp. 219 — 

 220 in referring to a conversation with his interprétez-, the well-known Danish- 

 Greenlander Carl Petersen, who had been engaged in the administrative service 

 of Greenland from 1841 and later had taken part in the expeditions of Penny 

 (1850) and Kane (1853). — For remarks on the same theory see also E. Rluhme 

 (1865) p. 53 footnote, CI. Markham (1875) pp. 306—309 and T. Kornerup (1913) 

 pp. 57 — 58. 



Later East Greenland expeditions from Ryder's in 1891 — 92 to the Danmark 

 Expedition (Mylius-Erichsen) in 1906—08 and Knud Rasmussen and Freuchen's 

 crossing over to the south side of Peary Land in 1912 have brought new dis- 

 coveries of house-ruins and tent-rings, which lie like a continuous chain along 



