. . .old chum of mine, wrote me that his health was broken down, and that he needed a rest. I invited him to come and visit me in Essex County, at the same time suggesting that I had a hard nut for him to crack. Professor Jeremiah Jorum arrived soon after, and his health picked up amazingly in the mountain air. One day he asked about ‘the hard nut.’ I produced the cipher, and told him something of its history. Perhaps I should have told you that Professor Jorum has devoted a good deal of his life to what is known as cryptology—or the solving of seemingly unsolvable puzzles. He had translated Egyptian cryptograms and inscriptions left by vanished tribes on ruins in Yucatan and Old Mexico.

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“He worked for several days on the cipher, and one day came to me with a radiant face. He told me he had solved it. No wonder I had failed. It was a simple enough cipher—one of the least complex, in fact—but the language used had been Lat. . . Read More