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From: ed@oakhill.UUCP (Ed Rupp)
Newsgroups: net.crypt,net.misc
Subject: The Beale Ciphers
Message-ID: <148@oakhill.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jul-84 21:20:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: oakhill.148
Posted: Thu Jul  5 21:20:09 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jul-84 01:56:41 EDT
Organization: Motorola Inc. Austin, Tx
Lines: 63

I'd like to start some discussion about the Beale Ciphers.  If
you haven't heard of them, here's a quick description:

About 1817 a group of 30 Virginian's went west on a hunting expedition.
They unexpectedly discovered gold and silver somewhere north of
Santa Fe, NM.  After digging it up for a few years they carried
two loads of it back to Virginia and buried it.  Not wanting their
fortune to be lost in case they were killed (by Indians, etc.) their
leader Thomas J. Beale made up a set of 3 ciphers and gave them
to an innkeeper, promising to send the key along in 10 years if they
didn't return.....  They never returned.  The key never appeared.
The innkeeper (Robert Morriss) waited 32 years, opened the box
containing the ciphers and some letters, spent many years trying
to break the ciphers, failed and gave them to a friend.
His friend also tried to break the ciphers, and was successful
in breaking one of them (#2).  The cleartext to #2 reads:

> I have deposited in the county of Bedford about four miles from Bufords
> in an excavation or vault six feet below the surface of the ground the
> following articles belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given
> in number three herewith.
> The first deposit consisted of ten hundred and fourteen pounds of
> gold and thirty-eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver deposited
> Nov. eighteen nineteen.
> The second was made Dec. eighteen twenty-one
> and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold and
> twelve hundred and eighty-eight of silver.
> Also jewels obtained in St. Louis in exchange to save transportation
> and valued at thirteen thousand dollars.
> The above is securely packed in iron pots with iron covers.
> The vault is roughly lined with stone and the vessels
> rest on solid stone and are covered with others.
> Paper number one describes the exact locality of the vault so that no
> difficulty will be had in finding it.

The other 2 ciphers are unbroken as far as is known.  
All 3 ciphers consist of numbers.  The key to #2 is the 
Declaration of Independence.  One takes the DOI, numbers the words
then substitutes the first letter of each word for the numbers
in the cipher.  Doing this for the other 2 ciphers gives mostly
garbage except for partial strings of the alphabet in #1 (named
Gillogly Strings for their discoverer).

The above description is based on a document "The Beale Papers"
published in 1885 by J.B.Ward.  I got interested in this about
2 years ago, but have run out of things to try.  The 'clearing-house'
for the ciphers is:
	The Beale Cypher Association
	P.O. Box 216
	Medfield, Mass 02052
	Send $1.00 and a large SASE to them for basic info.
	(Newsletter is $25/year)

I have (on-line): All 3 ciphers, the DOI, the 1885 Ward pamphlet,
	the obvious programs to apply keytexts to the ciphers and
	a (meager) list of oddities and observations.

So....  Is it a hoax?  Is the treasure still there (est. $18 Million)?
	What method was used for B1 and/or B3?
	Any experts out there willing to venture an opinion?
	Replies to my mailbox or net.crypt please.

Ed Rupp		{ihnp4,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!oakhill!ed