A Professor's Obsession with a Cryptic Parchment

In Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Chapter 2 opens with Professor Hardwigg in a state of near-frenzy. He has just discovered a parchment hidden inside an old Icelandic manuscript, and he is convinced it contains a secret of world-altering importance. "I declare to you it is runic," he cries, striking the table, "and contains some wonderful secrets which I must get at at any price." The entire chapter revolves around a single central question: what does the cryptic message mean, and can the professor decode it before his impatience consumes him?

The Puzzle of the Cryptograph

The professor dictates a string of apparently random letters to his nephew, the narrator, producing a sequence that looks like nonsense: "MM.RNLLSESRUELSEECJDESGTS SMFUNTEIEFNIEDRK EKT...". Hardwigg immediately recognizes this as a cryptograph—a message written in code. But he goes further, reasoning that if the parchment dates from the 16th century, its author would likely have written in Latin, the common language of learned men at the time. "These alchemists," he says, "Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus, were the true, the only learned men of the day. They made surprising discoveries." The parchment's owner, he deduces from a faded inscription, was one Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist and scholar.