The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-15
Chenstow Correspondent of the London Express.
 f<VVyyE have wasted an inhnity on
 M these matters. doing and
 w undoing the cypher history

A N Y
 N/ these matters, doing and
 w undoing the cypher history to mark out the ways for the discovery of the secrets and to devise proofs, know ing that men will admit nothing but on the faith of eyes or by careful ana se- we're examinations"
 take this sentence from the first vol ume of the Bacon cypher story which pr. Owen published as long ago as 1885,
 This was the work given out as pieceo together from the writings of ShaKe- speare and his contemporaries according to the cypher which Bacon placed there.
 If was the book which first put forward the statement that Bacon was the son or Queen Elizabeth and brother to the Eari of Essex-a theory which has been ac- cepted since by many Baconians as one of his motives in hiding the true author ship of his plays and poems
 It would seem almost as 1T bacon-iI all this story is to be believed-foresaw that in ircredulous age men would need visipie ,,roof to support those statements which he Is declared to have made in cypher.
 so tho. if the "Bacon cypher story contains the true words of Bacon ne nromises great rewards for him that shall find the secret
 These are the words which are given forth as written by Bacon, and hidden here and there among the plays: unless he that works loves it, not for the wages of an hireling. but for honor, reputation or fame. leaving no stone unturned as this discoverv will hereafter honor you. For mistake us not whit, my lord' the fates and oracles of heaven have sworn to rovalize the deeds of him that finds the hidden secret out"
 Both of these quotations have a sinsu- lar interest at this moment, when pr. or- vile Owen is literally leaving no stone unturned that may hide the proof which he believes is hidden deep down below the mud of the River Wye.
 This task seems almost superhuman. The ingenuity of man is pitted oaliy against the mercless march or the tides
 I can think of few works as perilous or exhausting as this search Tn the oeptn of a river where the men wade daily ana nightly through mud as villainous ana as treacherous as quicksands.
 The work goes forward with intolerable slowness. Each tide seeks to undo the progress of the last digging. Each tide the men work feverishly, delving deeper and deeper into the great we'll they have timbered out. and as soon as they are on the verge of striking something which +Iofr the evil water splashes down and warns them that the tide is on the turn, and they must scra"- be out.
 Thus it happened today when, piioted py | MT. Pirie Gordon, the Duke or beau- fo,t.s attache. to Mud Island, went again I to the desolate camp under the yew trees to watch the work. | The tide left the timbered hole level with the mud at about 1:SO, and pe1ore anything coull be done, the dreary work of p,,mping was begun again. It lasted an hour. and then down the men dropped | into the soupy mixture 10 feet below and shovelled nightly.
 They have gone below the level of the natural bottom of the river without strik- ing the gravel soil that was found in the abortive attempts of last month This led to an exciting moment today. ] Almost as the tide turned great fiat stone-not unlike a paving stone-was un- earthed from the mud, and below it the
 picks rang hard on something. MT. Hammond, the Chepstow engineer, swung himself into the pit. and bent down in his yellow oilskins and sou-
 wester under the shower of the incoming
 tide, as it found the gaps in the timber and splashed through. He almost smelt
 the corner in his excitement, for If there be something hard in the nature of the concrete in the mud, the outside of the cache, 1t is believed, will have been To-
 cated.
 ! The tree roots and the fragments of logs