BACON’S CIPHER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16494, 3 August 1921, Page 11

BACON’S CIPHER.

THE GLUE FOUND, There is a. saying in th© American Secret Service that no cipher can he invented to escape for long an intelligent pursuit after the key. Tho cipher of Roger Bacon, however, England’s famous thirteenth century monk, has passed through nearly 800 years of searchers’ hands and th© clue is only now beginning to bo detected. But, then. Bacon must himself have spent years upon his cipher, for it is entangled into six ciphers within ciphers. Professor William R. Nowbold, of the University of Pennsylvania, who hae been spending two years tracing all manner of clues through the Bacon cipher, is still puzzled by most of the text, sayo the “ Daily Express.” The manuscript seems to the unaccustomed ©y© to contain about 20,090 or 30,000 words. But each word is part of a shorthand system, and when the tangle i& unravelled tho total number of words will probably be nearly a million. Th© professor’s first clue was a sentence at tho end of the manuscript reading “ Michiton oladabas -maltos te teer cere portas.” He believed this sentence of part Latin and part gibberish was placed by Bacon in the manuscript as a guide. Professor Newbold out out tho meaningless letters and got a. Latin sentence reading.

“ Mibi dabas multos portas,” meaning, “ Thou hast given me many gates.” This was an indication of the way to make the final disentanglement, after the symbols in th© manuscript had been reduced to Latin. Then a of words at the end of the manuscript finally yielded the signature “ It. Baconi ” by a process of separating combined letters. He thereafter began an examination of all old shorthand systems. He finally discovered a system that bad been used by the ancient Greeks. This fitted perfectly into the Bacon symbols and made it certain that Racon had borrowed his shorthand from Greek sources. Then began the work of translation within translation, and th© professor is still at it. Ho has been, offered the services of three cipher experts employed by tho American Government, but it seems?- they must first qualify in mediaeval Latin,' cabalism, alchemy, astrology, and a few Other subjects not usually familiar to secret service cipher men of modern times.