"Your friend,
E. Ducie."
The MS. consisted of three or four sheets of deed-paper fastened together at on e corner with silk. The prefatory note was on the first sheet. This first sheet Ducie cut away with his penknife and locked up in his desk. The remaining sheets he sent to his friend Bexell, together with the note which he had written.
Three days later Mr. Bexell returned the sheets with his reply. In order properly to understand this reply it will be necessary to offer to the reader's notice a specimen of the MS. The conclusions arrived at by Mr. Bexell, and the mode by which he reached them, will then be more clearly comprehensible:
The following is a counterpart of the first few lines of the MS.:
253.12 59.29 14.5 96.14 158.49 1.29 465.1 28.53
4 1 6 10 4 12 9 1
____________________________________
16.36 151.18 58.7 14.29 368.1 209.18 43.11 1.31 1.1
____________________________________
11 3 9 8
29.6 186.9 204.11 86.19 43.16 348.14 196.29 203.5
4 5 10 6 1 5 6 2
186.9 1.31 21.10 143.18 200.6 29.40 408.9 61.5
5 9 4 8 3 12 11 4
209.11 496.1 24.24 28.59 69.39 391.10 60.13 200.1
2 6 4 1 10 11 3 3
The following is Mr. Bexel's reply to his friend Captain Ducie:
"My Dear Ducie,--With this note you will receive back your confounded MS., but without a translation. I have spent a good deal of time and labour in trying to decipher it, and the conclusions at which I have arrived may be briefly laid before you.
"1. Each group of three sets of figures represents a word.
"2. Each group of two sets of figures--those with a line above and a line below--represents a letter only.