The Baconian biliteral cipher is difficult to use today, owing to the present exact standardization of type and the fact that so few books are now hand set. Accompanying this chapter are facsimiles of Lord Bacon's biliteral alphabet as it appeared in the 1640 English translation of De Augmentis Scientiarum. There are four alphabets, two for the capital and two for the small letters. Consider carefully the differences between these four and note that each alphabet has the power of either the letter a or the letter b, and that when reading a word its letters are divisible into one of two groups: those which correspond to the letter a and those which correspond to the letter b. In order to employ the biliteral cipher, a document must contain five times as many letters as there are in the cipher message to be concealed, for it requires five letters to conceal one. The biliteral cipher somewhat resembles a telegraph code in which letters are changed into dots and dashes; according to the biliteral system, however, the dots and dashes are represented respectively by a's and b's. The word biliteral is derived from the fact that all letters of the alphabet may be reduced to either a or b. An example of biliteral writing is shown in one of the accompanying diagrams. In order to demonstrate the working of this cipher, the message concealed within the words "Wisdom and understanding are more to be desired than riches" will now be deciphered.

For Chapter 160, we have a text from London, 9900 ( Aa ); it is not complete, but the gaps can very easily be filled up from the Papyrus Busca

There were formed seven double letters, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Pe, Resh, Tau, each has two voices, either aspirated or softened. These are the...

The three versions which have been preserved of this text are very fragmentary. The most complete, papyrus 10478 of the British Museum, contains only...

The two chapters which are numbered by M. Naville as 136 A and 136 B are represented in the later recensions by a single chapter, which has been made...

"For the Muse was not then Greedy of gain or mercenary; Nor were Terpsichore's sweet, Honey-toned, silvery soft-voiced Strains made merchandise of."...

There is Romena, where I counterfeited The currency imprinted with the Baptist, For which I left my body burned above. But if I here could see the...

This Chapter is taken from papyrus London 9900 Aa . It has no vignette, the translation here given is that which I published in 1873 ( Zeitschrift ,...

Of this chapter we have unfortunately but one copy in Fa , of the Musée Borély. This is defective both at the beginning and at the end, and the text...

This chapter, in the MSS. of which the Turin copy is the type, is repeated as Chapter 121, with the following rubric:—

Let these notes of ours, as we have often said for the sake of those that consult them carelessly and unskilfully, be of varied character - and as...

The Truth in Symbols There are certain truths which cannot be well expressed in words, but which may be at least partially expressed in symbols. To...

These twenty-two letters, the foundations, He arranged as on a sphere, with two hundred and thirty-one modes of entrance. If the sphere be rotated...

By this Saint Anthony his pig doth fatten, And many others, who are worse than pigs, Paying in money without mark of coinage. But since we have digres...

This Chapter is found in two papyri: one at Leyden, and one at Naples. Its title begins like that of Chapter 124. The first paragraphs are translated...

The printing of the letters large enough to be readily legible on so small a map rendered precise placements impracticable....

Now then, if there be any that have a desire to follow me, and would fain have this Knowledge whereof I write, I advise him to follow me in this...

The text of this chapter handed down by the Turin papyrus and those which agree with it contains nothing very difficult for a translator, but on...

When you write on white paper, What is written is read at a glance; But when you write on the face of a written page, It is not plain, reading it is...

The ancient text of this chapter has most unfortunately been lost. A few words only remain in the fragments of Papyrus Pm . M. Naville has also...

Now bears us onward one of the hard margins, And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it, From fire it saves the water and the dikes. Even as the...