Hincks on Secret Writing. 23 



ward at the end of each division. If a capital letter occur in the 

 middle of the sentence, as in Nos. 2 and 3, set the dial for that in- 

 dicator, and the key of the first division following it will be 

 given, — Then proceed as before. In Nos. 1 and 6 the divisions 

 correspond with words, in Nos, 9 and 10 with letters ; in fact, 

 they are perfectly arbitrary in their lengths. 



By help of a key, constructed as I have described, it will be 

 easy to read the concealed sentence, Nos. 6, Sfc., which is this 

 " Monuments of learning are durable ;" and to correct the key, 

 sentence, line 2, word 3, which should be " many" and not 

 " five." Other errata, proceeding probably from the careless- 

 ness of the printer, are to be found in several of the ciphers. 



It will be remarked, that in this cipher (and it is the case in 

 all Mr. C.'s,) j must be represented by i, and v and w by u ; but 

 the letters q, x and z, are also omitted in the present key ; and as 

 none of them occurs in either of the sentences given, it is im- 

 possible to tell what contrivance Mr. C. uses to represent them ; 

 the letter marked k in the key will probably suffice for them all. 

 But see Mr. C.'s character of a complete cipher, (p. 92). How 

 can this be applied to any of those that he has proposed ? 



It would also appear from Mr. C.'s being able to cipher 

 *' Europe in 200 ways, Emancipation in 1280," ^^p. 93,) that 

 he had Jive symbols for e in this key ; there appear, how- 

 ever, to be only three. Has Mr. C. any contrivances to repre- 

 sent this letter, not exhibited in any of his 12 specimens ? or are 

 we to understand the passage in p. 93 as applying not to this 

 variable key, but to the permanent one of No. 18 ? 



I pass now to the second kind of literal ciphers, or those in 

 which the symbols retain each a permanent signification. Se- 

 crecy is in such ciphers to be looked for, by having a consi- 

 derable number of characters, especially to represent those 

 letters which are of most frequent occurrence. It is evident 

 that a sufficient supply of symbols for the most extensive key 

 of this sort that could be required, would be furnished by the 

 series of natural numbers, commencing suppose with unity, and 

 continued ad libitum; a point, or comma, being interposed 

 between every two foT distincliuii. The letters of the Hebrew 



