Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/733

* CRYPTO-CALVINISTS. 635 CRYPTOGRAPHY. a Crypto-Calvinist. The tnitl seonis to havo been that he did not consider Uiat cither opinion was a sulhcieut bar to communion with Christ, and therefore thought that both of them ought to be allowed. The conlrovcr!5y was becoming violent before his death, but afterwards it bnjke out with great virulence, and continued with alternate success on each side for lifly j-ears; during which time frequent attempts were made to suppress the Calvinistic opinions bv imprison- ing their leading advocates, and, at last, in ICll, by the execution of Chancellor Nicolas Crell. The term has also been applied to the Missouri Lutherans because of their acceptance of the doc- trine of unconditional election. CRYP'TOGAMS {from Gk. Kpv--6<:, kri/ptos. hidden + yuuoc, gamos, marriage). A general term that includes all plants below the sper- niatoplu'tes (seed-plants) ; that is, the pteri- dophytes (ferns and their allies), bryophytes (mosses and their allies), and thallophytes (al- ga; and fungi). The name means 'hidden sex re- production,' and, in contrast with it, the sperma- tophytes are often called '|)hanerogams,' which means 'evident sex reproduction.' The names are not appropriate, since the sex reproduction of cryptogams is 'very evident,' and that of phanerogams is very much 'hidden.' The mistake arose from regarding stamens and pistils as sex organs. The term cryptogam, liowever, remains one of great convenience ; but the term phanero- gam is being replaced by the much more sig- nificant term spermatophyte (seed-plant). The old distinction between cryptogams and phanero- gams, that the former reproduce by spores and the latter by seeds, is a false one. Both groups produce spores, but the cryptogams do not jiro- duce seeds. Since the ])teridopliytes are distinct from the bryophytes and thallophytes in develop- ing a vascular system, they are ^•ery frequently called 'vascular cryptogams.' For full account, see articles inider the difl'erent group-names. CRYPTOG'RAPHY (Gk. Kpv-rdc. Icrijptos, secret -- ypnipeiv, finipliein. to write). The art of writing messages and documents in cipher, in- tended to be read only by those possessing the key. The irse of secret methods of correspondence on important matters of state is of considerable antiquity. Plutarch and Ciellius tell of a method employed by Spartan ephors in communicating with their generals abroad, which has received the' name of scytnle, from the staff used in decipher- ing it. A narrow strip of parchment was first wound spirally upon the stafT, its edges just meet- ing, and the message was then written along the line of jointure. When it M'as unwound, the broken letters could afterwards be read only by rolling the parchment upon a duplicate start' in possession of the general to whom it was sent. This is but one of a large number of mechanical devices for reading secret dispatches, such as papers pierced with holes, to be laid over the document, revealing only such words or letters as compose the secret message. Cryptography, in its stricter sense of the use of a cipher alphabet formed either by changing the value of the difl'erent letters, or by substituting for them groups of letters, numbers, or arbitraiy symbols, if not of Semitic origin, was at least already, known to. and used by. the sacred writers, in its simplest form of using the alphabet in its inverted order. By the Jews this form is known Vol. V.^il. by the name of Atbos. a wurd formed from A. the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; T, the last letter; B, the second; and S, the last but one. An instance of its use occurs in .Icremiah xiv., where the ])ropliet, wishing to veil his meaning from all l)ut the initiated, writes Shchai-h instead of liabel. using the second and twclflli letters from the end of the alphabet, instead of from the beginning. .Julius Ca'sar's 'quarta elenicnturum littera,' in which D takes the place of A. and K, (if B, is only a variant of this simplest form of cipher, and Suetonius states that a like method was employed by Augustus. In media'val and modern times, many .scholars have turned their attention to cryptography, amcnig them .John Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, in his Politjra- pliia (1500); Anaslasius Kircher, and his pupil, Kaspar Sehott, whose work, De Magia t'niversuU (Wurzburg, l(i7li), contains a crypto- graphic table that lies at the foundation of the modern cipher telegraph systems. It consists simply of the alphabet repeated twenty-four times in liorizontal rows, each successive row dropping olT one or more letters from the begin- ning, and adding it at the end. Thus, in the second row, B stands under A, C under B. etc. In the third C represents A. in the fourth D = A, etc. Thus correspondents have a choice of twenty- four al])habets, it being necessary only to agree between themselves upon the first or key letter. For diplomatic purposes, this form is much too simple, since an.y one could decipher dispatches made in this way, by the simple mechanical task of making at most twent>-four versions. Accord- ingly, various methods of complicating the cipher have been tried, one simple and ell'cctive way be- ing that which is known in France as the method of Saint-C'AT. It consists in using alternately two or more of these twenty-four alphabets, the "order in which they are to be used being determined by a key-word previously agreed upon. Thus, if the key-word is Army, four alphabets are to be used, namely those in the rows beginning resj)ee- tively with A, R, il, and Y. Various other elabo- rations have been sometimes employed, .such as arbitrarily changing the sequence of the letters of the alphabet, inserting at regular inter-als letters or .symbols that have no meaning, "nulls and insignificants," Bacon called them, or using groups of letters to represent separate letters. Of the last-named variety is the famous biliteral cipher of Bacon himself, consisting of various combinations of A and B, arranged in groups of five. Thus, aabah, uhuhii, babha = My. Used in this way, such a cipher would be but little more dilficult to detect than any ordinary set of single symbols. But Bacon went a step further; for the a's and the b's of his group.s he siib.stituted two fonts of type, difTcring so slightly as to present little distinction to the un- trained eye. These, called respectively the o font and the b font, can be used for setting up any ordinary page of printed matter, when by the proper admixture of the two fonts, each suc- cessive group of five letters on the page may be made to stand for a single letter in B.icon's bi- literal system. The fact that Bacon took a deep interest in cryptograms is probably the origin of Ignatius Donnelly's theory that the Shake- spearean plays contain a cipher that if inter- preted would i>rove that Bacon wrote (hem. And recently a still bolder attempt has been made by a certain Mrs. Gallup to apply the biliteral