stefansson-wrangel-09-18-037-001

Galle

October 8, 1924.

Dear Mrs. Galle:

I wrote you from Australia about all the circum-
stances of the little bookcontaining Milton's fragmentary notes which
I did not send at that time since carrying them myself appeared to be
safer than trusting them to the mail. The trouble in sending a box
through the mail between countries is that the customs officers are
likely to open the package or to delay it. I have sometimes had
parcels lost that way. A package of documents sent to me from England
this summer, for instance, was sent back to England again through an
error by the customs officers, and has not yet arrived in England so
we do not know if it will eventually be lost.

I am to-day sending the box to you by registered
mail.

I sent you from Australia the typed transcript which
we have made to the best of our ability. I should be very grateful to
you if you let me know about any discrepencies you discover - if you
think that we have misread some notation or if you notice that we have
omitted something.

The book about Wrangel Island will appear in a few
weeks. Milton's notes have been very valuable in straightening out
certain things otherwise hard to understand, and I have used them
somewhat in the body of the book. But the book itself had unfortunately
been written before I got the little box and it was too late to com-
pletely remodel it. I have therefore written a separate section in
the appendix on the basis of the notes.

I am hoping very much that both you and all the other
relatives will be pleased with the book when it comes out. It has been
very difficult to write for many reasons but especially because of the
part played in it by Harold Noice.

An attorney for Mr. Noice has recently explained to
me that some at least of the untruths in his published story were put
into print by him because his wife insisted on it. It seems that he
had originally told her these untruths expecting them to go no farther,
but believing them completely she insisted on his publishing them and he
did not have the courage to own up to her that he had been telling her
fibs. Apparently she understands the situation now, for the lawyer has
informed me that they have been permanently separated. The separation
took place in Brazil and she left Mr. Noice behind there while she went