Field notes, reel 3

A. WREN, FIELD NOTES — REEL 3. DEPARTMENTAL ARCHIVE, 1974.

Transcribed by hand from the tape and typed. The tape was subsequently re-used and does not survive.

Collation of the four copies has been completed twice. The first collation, made in March, gives a sequence of thirty-one passages of which four are peculiar to the later copies. The second collation, made in September on the same four copies, gives a sequence of thirty-one passages of which two are peculiar to the later copies. I have set both tables out below rather than choose between them.

The obvious explanation is that I made an error in March, or in September, and I would ordinarily assume the first. I have not been able to locate the error. This is a material inconsistency of the dullest kind and I do not propose to dignify it further.

TABLE I (March) — passages peculiar to Copies C and D: 7, 12, 19, 26.

TABLE II (September) — passages peculiar to Copies C and D: 12, 26.

Note appended in ink, in the same hand: passages 7 and 19 are present in Copy A. I have checked this twice and asked Dr. Pemberton to check it a third time. She reports that they are present. My March table records that they were not, and my March table was made with the copy open in front of me.

Further note, undated: the observed sequence is stable. It is the record of it that moves. I am aware how that sentence reads and I have let it stand because it is the accurate one.