Curiosities of Cypher
Another method of veiling a communication is that of employing numbers or arbitrary signs in the place of letters, and this admits of many refinements. Here is an example to test the reader's sagacity:
§ †431 45 2+9 +§51 4= 8732+ 287 45 2+9 †¶=+
I just give the hint that it is a proverb.
The following is much more ingenious, and difficult of detection.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | a | d | g | k | n | q | t | x |
| B | b | e | h | l | o | r | u | y |
| C | c | f | i | m | p | s | w | z |
Now suppose that I want to write England; I look among the small letters in the foregoing table for e, and find that it is in a horizontal line with B, and vertical line with B, so I write down BB; n is in line with A and E, so I put AE; continue this, and England will be represented by Bbaeacbdaaaeab. Two letters to represent one is not over-tedious: but the scheme devised by Lord Bacon is clumsy enough. He represented every letter by permutations of a and b; for instance,
A was written aaaaa, B was written aaaab
C was written aaaba, D was written aabaa
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