59 6 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 



what prompted the possibly rude remark 

 about fleas, is that he has overlooked two 

 perfectly good and genuine ciphers in the 

 material he offers. These are to be found 

 in the Tractates Trium Verbarum, repro- 

 duced in his Plate IX, and in the Vatican 

 manuscript, Lat. 3iox, reproduced in his 

 Plates XXVII and XXVIII. The first of 

 these consists of three passages, concluding 

 each of the three chapters, and described 

 by Newbold as "series of meaningless 

 letters." Actually they are in a very 

 simple substitution cipher, using the 

 following alphabet: 



Plain Text ABCDEFGHILMNOPQRSTUV 

 Cipher ZADEC I H MNLO RTVS 



The first passage runs: 



Explicit MZINSM et ORHMSM MCNEZDHSM RLIERH AZDSN 

 magum primum mendacium Rogeri Bacun 



ZE HLGZNNC OZRHD 

 ad Iohannc (m) Paric 



(The final D in cipher is clearly a scribe's 

 error for T, reading Paris.) 



The Vatican manuscript is even more 

 entertaining, and more damaging to 

 Professor Newbold's sense of proportion. 

 This is apparently an alchemical docu- 

 ment, which he labors over greatly, and 

 eventually converts into a theological 

 treatise. The original text contains 

 obvious cipher passages, together with 

 symbols which we take to be alchemical 

 signs . These latter are outside our field of 

 knowledge; but it has proved entertaining 

 and easy to translate the cipher portions . 

 The alphabet used is the following : 



ABC DEFGHILMNOPQRSTU 

 Cipher C B [n] [8]DFG LZMNRPQ[6]YTS 



M [7] 



[»] [9] 



The numbers refer to some of the arbi- 

 trary symbols (called by Newbold 

 Tironian signs); the numbering is New- 



bold's, but it would appear that he had 

 found more different signs than were 

 actually used. Also we find that his 

 reading of some letters differs from that 

 obviously necessary to make sense. 



Not being an authority on alchemy, we 

 do not feel competent to expound the 

 deciphered text; but with the alphabet 

 just given, anyone who cares to may 

 amuse himself with it. 



THE OPUS MAJUS OF ROGER BACON. 



A translation by Robert B. Burke. 



University of Pennsylvania Press 

 2. volumes, $10 Philadelphia 



6x9!; xiii + 840 

 We have all heard of Bacon as the fore- 

 runner of modern experimental science, 

 but most of us have had to take our 

 opinions secondhand. The present trans- 

 lation affords an opportunity for direct 

 acquaintance, and should interest every- 

 one who is curious about the history of 

 science. We fear, however, that Bacon's 

 reputation will suffer; as long as he 

 remained a man of mystery, he could be 

 regarded as a superhuman genius, to whom 

 details like the invention of the telescope 

 and microscope were matters of routine. 

 A reading of the Opus Majus will destroy 

 many such pleasant illusions, and provide 

 the basis for a sounder estimate of Bacon's 

 importance. 



It is unfortunate that the present volume 

 lacks annotations. It is extremely diffi- 

 cult for the reader with no special knowl- 

 edge of the period to gather how much of 

 the Opus Majus is original with Bacon 

 and how much he has obtained from 

 Avicenna, Alhagen, Aristotle, and others. 

 It is to be hoped that Professor Burke 

 will give us a supplementary volume of 

 notes. 



