People who share the reviewer's partiality for puzzles, no less
than serious students of the art of solving cyphers, will find a real feast in Mr. Macbeth's translation of Andre Langie's work on Cryptography. This is not, nor does it set out to be, a manual, in the sense of being a complete and systematic handbook on the subject. It is chiefly an account of some of the experiences of an expert professional cryptographer, amusing, interesting and even exciting. At the same time, in every case the cryptogram is so given that the reader can try his own hand on it on the same terms as the author and afterwards go on to read the method by which it was originally solved. In addition, there are some valuable tables of fre- quencies in various languages of great help to the student. Mr. Macbeth has made some excellent additions, especially to the tables, and finishes up with a challenge to the reader in the shape of a long cypher to which the solutionis not given.
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