Clause 19.d.iii

Clause 19.d.iii is the fourth-order subdivision of Clause 19, Section d, of the Sixth Concordance, and the provision under which the Tower administers what the Librarians term provisional descent: the descent undertaken by a single archivist, without expedition, witness, or return inventory, into floors already catalogued. It is distinct from the formal Recursive Descent defined elsewhere in the same Clause, and the distinction has been the subject of continuous amendment since the provision was first entered in the recension of 4 Ember 19—. Clause 19.d.iii is not a long provision. Its operative text runs to nine lines. Its commentaries fill, at last count, one hundred and forty-one shelf-feet on the Register Floor.

Text and subdivision

Clause 19.d.iii comprises three sentences and a schedule. The first sentence establishes that a provisional descent may be made by any archivist holding a valid floor credential, provided the floor in question stands at or below the archivist's own station. The second sentence requires the archivist to leave a marker at the point of entry, "of a kind legible to the next party ascending or descending, and not merely to the archivist." The third sentence is the one litigated:

"No provisional descent shall be counted toward the fulfilment of any inventory obligation, nor cited in any return, save where the archivist has returned."

— Sixth Concordance, Clause 19, Section d, Sub-clause iii

The schedule appends a table of marker classes, of which eleven are still in use and four are listed as "retired but honoured," a status that entitles a marker of the retired class to be read but not replaced.

The question of the returned archivist

The third sentence is generally read as a tautology by the drafting office and as a scandal by everyone else. If an archivist has returned, the descent may be cited; if the archivist has not returned, there is no one to cite it. Division III: Metrological Anomalies has argued since 41 Ember that the sentence therefore does nothing at all, and that the actual operative rule — that a descent is void until completed — is imported from Clause 19.e, not from 19.d.iii. The Division's memorandum of 43 Ember, "On the Vacancy of Sub-clause iii," was answered by the drafting office in nine words: "The sentence prevents a great deal of writing." That answer is itself now cited more often than the sub-clause.

The disagreement is not academic. Under the Division's reading, an archivist who does not return leaves no citable descent and the floor record is unaffected. Under the drafting office's reading, the archivist's marker becomes a citable descent from the moment it is read by another party, whether or not the archivist is ever seen again. The two readings diverge by roughly three hundred descents a year.

The Vaunt Marker incident

In the winter of 58 Ember, an archivist of the ninth station named Cressida Vaunt descended to a floor numbered 2,204 — a floor of narrow gauge and unlit landings — and left a marker of the fourth class, which is a slate. The slate was found eleven days later by a party of two ascending from 2,209, who read it, recorded it, and continued. Vaunt did not return. Her descent was nonetheless entered in the floor record under the drafting office's reading, and the entry was challenged by the Division, which held that a slate is not a return. The Committee on Jurisdictional Overlap was asked to resolve the matter and declined, on the ground that the question concerned a floor and not a jurisdiction, and that the Committee's remit had not been extended downward.

The dispute was settled by amendment rather than by ruling. Clause 19.d.iii now carries an interlined note, entered in the hand of the Under-Registrar of that year, to the effect that a marker "shall not be taken for a person." The note is not numbered, is not in the schedule, and is regarded by the Division as without force and by the drafting office as the whole point of the sub-clause. Vaunt's entry stands.

Relationship to the Concordances

Clause 19.d.iii is frequently confused with, and occasionally cited in place of, Concordance III, which governs Tier-III processions and protocols and has nothing to do with descent. The confusion arises because Annex 7, Volume III reproduces the Sixth Concordance's Clause 19 in an appendix with the Tier-III material, and the appendix's pagination runs 19.d.iii against Concordance III's own sub-clause iii, which concerns something else entirely. The pagination error was noted in 61 Ember and corrected in the following printing, but the corrected printing is the rarer of the two.

The sub-clause is also sometimes invoked alongside Ordinance Kappa-19, which operationalised Clause III of Addendum Kappa. The two provisions share a numeral and no subject matter. Clause III of the Ordinance addresses the ratification of Tier-III pronouncements; 19.d.iii addresses slates on landings. Librarians who cite the one for the other are asked, gently, to read the annex first.

Practice

In practice a provisional descent is made early, before the lamps are trimmed, and the marker is left where the archivist intends to turn back rather than where they entered — a habit contrary to the text and universal among the ninth station, which maintains that a marker at the point of entry tells the next party nothing they did not already know. The Sympathetic Resonator is not required for a provisional descent and is not carried on one; Concordance III-A, Clause 12 applies to measurement, not to walking.

Markers of the first class are issued at the station desk and signed for. Slates are not signed for, may be taken freely, and are not to be removed from the landings where they are left.