s doubled with great frequency in English--in such
words, for example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,'
'agree,' etc. In the present instance we see it doubled no less than
five times, although the cryptograph is brief.

"Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now, of all _words_ in the language,
'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not
repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of collocation,
the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of such letters,
so arranged, they will most probably represent the word 'the.' Upon
inspection, we find no less than seven such arrangements, the
characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that ; represents _t_,
4 represents _h_, and 8 represents _e_--the last being now well
confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken.

"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to establish a
vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements and
terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last
instance but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs--not far from the
end of the cipher. We know that the ; immediately ensuing is the
commencement of a word, and, of six characters succeeding this 'the,'
we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters
down, thus, by the letters we know them to represent, leaving a space
for the unknown--

t eeth.

"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the '_th_,' as forming no
portion of the word commencing with the first _t_; since, by experiment
of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, we perceive
that no word can be formed of which this _th_ can be a part. We are
thus narrowed into

t ee,

and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive at
the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another
letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words 'the tree' in
juxtaposition.

"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the
combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what
immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:

the tree;4([dagger]?34 the,

or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:

the tree thr[double dagger]?3h the.

"Now, if, in the place of the unknown characters, we leave blank
spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:

the tree thr...h the,

when the word 'through' makes itself evident at once.