"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces,
or substitute dots, we read thus:
the tree thr . . . h the,
when the word '_through_' makes itself evident at once. But this
discovery gives us three new letters, _o, u_, and _g_, represented by
??? ? and 3.
"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known
characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this
arrangement,
83(88, or egree,
which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,' and gives us
another letter, _d_, represented by ?? .
"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination
;46(;88*
"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by
dots, as before, we read thus:
th . rtee,
an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and
again furnishing us with two new characters, _i_ and _n_, represented
by 6 and *.
"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,
53???????? ,
"Translating as before, we obtain
good,
which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first two
words are 'A good.'
"To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as
discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus:
5 represents a
?? " d
8 " e
3 " g
4 " h
6 " i
* " n
??? " o
( " r
; " t
"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters
represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of
the solution.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221