VMS Help PASCAL, Predeclared Routines, Ordinal, LOWER  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

  This function returns the lower bound  for  ordinal  types,  SET
  base types, and array indexes.

  Syntax:

     LOWER( x [[, n]] )

  The parameter 'x'  is  a  type  identifier  or  variable  of  an
  ordinal,  SET,  or  ARRAY type.  The parameter 'n' is an integer
  constant that denotes a dimension of 'x', if 'x'  is  an  array.
  If  'x'  is an array and if you omit the 'n', Compaq Pascal uses
  the default value 1.  If 'x' is  an  array,  LOWER  returns  the
  lower  bound  of the nth dimension of 'x'.  If 'x' is an ordinal
  type, LOWER returns the lower bound or smallest value.   If  'x'
  is a SET, LOWER returns the lower bound of the SET base type.