Here, courtesy of Cipher Mysteries reader Matt Malone, is a new historical cipher that he calls the “Hollow River Cipher”, which he found in a magazine from the early 1900s called “The Prince Edward Island Magazine” while on vacation. (There are 67 issues scanned online here from 1899 to 1905, so other interesting stories may well be lurking there for the persistent.)
The first part of the story, related by Mr Senachie, was on pages 163-164 of the July 1900 edition:
This mentioned a pair of strange rectangular pits that appeared near the Hollow River around 1840 one March, that some thought might be to do with treasure pits.
A follow-on article by “D. A. W.” appeared on pages 241-248 of the October 1900 edition:
This related a story copied from “a remnant of a comprehensive diary”, dated 1749, that described a cryptogram dated 1738 that the diary writer had found written on folded parchment in a floating bottle, as well as a story of how some treasure was buried (allegedly in 1738) in similar size holes to the ones (presumably uncovered by the winter’s frost) found in 1840.
All the pages can be conveniently found on a single imgur webpage, courtesy of Matt Malone. Or, if you want to download all the pages in one go, Matt has very kindly placed a single zipfile here.
The Hollow River Cipher
Of course, we cipher people have long learnt not to put too much trust in the stories that end up backfilled around unsolved ciphers (e.g. the Beale Ciphers etc). Rather, we must instead start with the cryptogram itself as reproduced in the PEI Magazine:
Here’s my transcription of the cryptogram in the magazine:
e q E m e g u k O O o k A I k E | m u g O q E i U k e u s k A y q E m E o A Y 10, 1738 | k E A i M E y E u s m A U e q A i E 2 = 1. 1 = 3. A = A. | I. u s i o o q I u O m E q f U A q c E c e q e y O | g m o k A m w m m O y m I m s E mc y q E e m u g I o s O O m A k k i U m u A m c s q E A u U q E J I c c e m k I m e i u E E I i g s u O m E g u m c q g c A mc E k E n E m Y e w w o u o A k k u s q g A o-k I m E g A k c k E m i s g m. y E u s eq O o u O u s g E m e-o I s u o I c c k k E u E e O m c. i eq O y u g A Y.
My initial decryption notes:
1) the letters appears to have been spaced apart for clarity (which is nice)
2) the two panels of lines 1-4 appear to be intended to be read left-half then right-half
3) the top left of lines 1-2 is probably the place/date where/when the note was composed
4) the left half of line 3 appears to have a somewhat mysterious structure
5) some pairs of letters have no space between: mc (lines #4 and #6), eq (lines #6 and #7)
6) there are a few hyphens and a few full stops, almost all in the final two lines.
7) having been found off Canada, the plaintext language is probably French or English
Now, I could leave this for my readers to figure out (which is what Klaus Schmeh does with his messages found in bottles)… but many apologies, becauseI’ve basically cracked most of it already. So here’s what it (mostly) says:
Nick’s Decryption
Using the above transcription carefully, CryptoCrack was able to help move me far enough in the right direction to work out the basic idea behind this cryptogram. The big trick is that only lower case letters are enciphered, i.e. upper case letters are completely unenciphered (and these are usually vowels).
Once you’ve got that idea worked out, you then have to try to read past the inevitable enciphering errors and copying errors that cryptograms almost always include. (Here we have parchment -> diary -> copy of diary -> article passed to editors -> article typeset in magazine.)
Where a letter seems to have been omitted in the plaintext, I’ve inserted an underscore. A few letters have been manually corrected to the most probable, but it’s pretty much all as it should be:
eqEmegukOOok_AI_kE
FRENCHSLOOPL'AIGLE
iUkeuskAyqEm_EoAY10,1738
GULFSTLAWRENCEMAY10,1738
2 = 1. 1 = 3. A = A.
(No idea what these mean)
oqIuOmEqfUAqcEceqeyO
PRISONERQUARTERCREWO
mugOqE
NSHORE
kEAiMEyEusmAUeqAiE
LEAGUEWESTNAUFRAGE ---- ("naufrage" = "shipwreck" in French)
I.usio
I.STGM (no idea about this bit)
gmokAm_wm_mOymImsEmcyq
ENGLANDUNKNOWNINTENDWR ("England" is a bit of a guess here, though very close)
EemugIosOOmAkkiUmuAmcsqEAuUqEJIccemkIm
EFNSHIMTOONALLGUNSANDTREASUREHIDDENLIN
eiuEEIigsuOmEgumcqgcAmcEkEnEmYewwouoAkk
FGSEEINGITSONEISDTHDANDELE?ENYFUUMSMALL
usqgAo-kImEgAkckEmisgm.yEuseqOuOusgEme-o
STREAM-LINEHALDLENGTHN.WESTFROSOSTHENF-M
IsuoIcckkEuEeOmc.ieqOyugAY
ITSMIDDLLESEFOND.GFROWSHAY
My best guess is that “GFROWSHAY” is the name of the English sailor writing this note, though there may well be errors in his name. 🙁 And might the “SMALL STREAM” be the Hollow River (which was indeed little more than a creek)?
Overall, here’s my attempt at reconstructing the enciphering table, though many of the cryptogram’s slips and miscopies have made it hard to be 100% certain:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z C - D - F Q H - G - L - N - M - R - T - S - U - W -
My best guess is that “2 = 1. 1 = 3. A = A.” is somehow an aide-memoire for the cipher table. But I don’t know exactly how.
But It’s Not All Over Yet…
Tantalizingly, the lines containing the phrase “ALL GUNS AND TREASURE HIDDEN” onward are extremely hard to make out. So now that I’ve got this started, this is where my talented readers come in, to try to resolve all the genuinely difficult stuff that I’m unable to.
What can you clever people make of the rest of this? Does it describe where to find treasure? 🙂
Each lowercase letter has 2 possible decryptions: either add 1 or subtract 2 from the encrypted letter.
Here are some possible corrections:
oqIuOmEq fUAqcEc eqey OmugOqE = PRISONER GUARDED CREW ONSHORE
yqEem ugIo sOOm Akk iUmu Amc sqEAuUqE = WRECK SHIP TOOK ALL GUNS AND TREASURE
OmE gumcqgc Amc = ONE HUNDRED AND
Nick:
The equations seem to represent the substitution rules: Lower case letters are replaced either with the preceeding (2=1) or the next but one (1=3) letter in the alphabet. A=A means that uppercase letter aren’t enciphered.
I think OmEgumcqgcAmcEkEnEm may be ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN, but the V in ELEVEN is encrypted incorrectly and the U in HUNDRED should be capital.
Paul Relkin: thanks again! So we’re getting a little closer to a complete decryption:
FRENCH SLOOP L’AIGLE
GULF ST LAWRENCE MAY 10,1738
PRISONER GUARDED CREW ONSHORE
LEAGUE WEST NAUFRAGE
I.usio
ENGLAND UNKNOWN INTEND WRECK SHIP TOOK ALL GUNS AND TREASURE HIDDEN
LINFG SEEING IT ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN YFUUM SMALL
STREAM-LINEHALDLENGTHN.WESTFROSOSTHENF-M
ITSMIDDLLESEFOND.GFROWSHAY
l.USIO, could be IT’S UNCLEAR SURE INTENT of ..England
GFROWSHAY, is most likely Geoffrey O’Shea
For those downloading the zip file, the goofy “media” whatever it is “app” that it demands to install before the download proceeds can be avoided by closing that window and then clicking on “download still not working ?” “click here to download again” (or similar words to that effect) and this time it will give a message “regenerating the key” for a brief moment and then the download will proceed without further intrusion.
1: frEnchslOOplAIlE -> L’AILE makes more sense to me.
2: gUlfstlAwrEnEmAY
7: jtsmjddllEsfOnd.jcrOzshAY -=> its middlle fond i croz shay
no time to do the rest now
I swore I would stay away from all puzzles except the VMS, and Paul managed to post the corrections to the first part before I had even read the whole puzzle (and I only have five minutes to look at this), but Nick, maybe there are numbers and compass points in that last part… something like…
In cg s[outh]E[ast] EIght s[outh] OnE hundred And ElEvEn w[est] strhAm-lInE hAld lEngth n[orth].wEs[t]
Sorry, I have to run, but it was an idea that struck me as I glanced through it.
@James Pannozzi
Apologies i guess mediafire isnt the best upload site, i can put it up on MEGA.co.nz if that’d be preferred?
Sorry. In my hurry copied wrong text. This is what I got so far.
Lines numbered from top 1-8 and right is b.
1 frEnchslOOplAIlE -> french sloop la île
2 gUlfstlAwrEnEmAY -> gulf st Lawrene May 10, 1738
3b – l’usio (use that)
4 prlsOnErgUArdEdcrewO -> prisoner guarded crew
…
8 ItsmlddllEsfOnd.jcrOwshAY -> its middlles fond. (J or G) Crowshay
Could it be:
PLAN UNKNOWN
UP SMALL STREAM
SECOND. J CROWSHAY
Also, SEEING IT doesn’t fit. It could be something like EIGHTS.
…HIDDEN (I)IN FIVE EIGHTS ONE HUNDRED?
I cant help too much with the cipher bit, however on the historical elements re the text, I can comment on doubts about our sloop, the good ship L’Aigle and its apparent location in The Golf of St. lawrence in 1738…Plenty of larger vessels of that name (Eagle) both English and French around at the time, but not precisely. There was a Sloop in service with the French in the late 18th century that had been an English privateer and another French fireship that saw refirbishment in 1715, but nothing more about her. As for the gulf, formerly Golfe Saint Laurent (of course), that name does not seem to have been in existence circa. our time of interest, being simply known as river mouth of that name. Perhaps Cape Anguille on Newfoundland/Labrador could fit the cipher translation just as well. I’ll stand corrected apu if caught out.
From Wikipedia:
Because Cartier [1491–1557] arrived in the estuary on Saint Lawrence’s feast day, he named it the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
So it seems the St. Lawrence estuary was dubbed the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the early 16th century.
JK: Cartier was credited with quite a few things, like naming Canada for instance which is often disputed by some historians. The claim is that he also happened to give the geographically inaccurate title to the gulf of St. Lawrence and it’s entrance to what was to become the like named river upon arrival in late April or early March. If he had done so in honour of the Saint’s celebrated feast day, then he must have done so about four months prematurely according to a date long recognised by the Vatican as being 10th August. If just by chance there is that much of a difference between the Gregorian and Julian method of calculation, then of course I must bow to the great Wiki’s better judgement of such matters. Apparently many of Cartier’s achievements were later piffled by those who had sanctioned his three voyages of exploration, which seems to have been a little unfair, don’t you think?…
I always take Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but I thought I would post it as it expressed a different point of view.
It wasn’t really my goal to disagree with you, however, since I don’t have time to follow up the Wiki article to see how accurate it is… my main motivation for posting it was because IF it is true, and IF the HR cipher refers to the Gulf of St. Lawrence (the substitution is consistent, so I believe that it does), then what was MEANT by the Gulf of St. Lawrence in olden days may be different from what modern readers might assume.