Editing Beale ciphers (section)

==Deciphered message==
{{original research|date=April 2024}}
The [[plaintext]] of paper number 2 reads:

<blockquote>I have deposited in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford's, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles, belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number three, herewith:

The first deposit consisted of ten hundred and fourteen pounds of gold, and thirty-eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited Nov. eighteen nineteen. The second was made Dec. eighteen twenty-one, and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold, and twelve hundred and eighty-eight of silver; also jewels, obtained in St.&nbsp;Louis in exchange to save transportation, and valued at thirteen thousand dollars.

The above is securely packed in iron pots, with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone, and the vessels rest on solid stone, and are covered with others. Paper number one describes the exact locality of the vault, so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.</blockquote>

The second cipher can be decrypted fairly easily using a modified copy of the [[United States Declaration of Independence]], but some editing is necessary.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} To decrypt it, one finds the word corresponding to the number (e.g., the first number is 115, and the 115th word in the Declaration of Independence is "instituted"), and takes the first letter of that word (in the case of the example, "I").

Beale used a version of the United States Declaration of Independence slightly different from the original, and made mistakes in numbering it.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} To extract the hidden message, the following five modifications must be applied to the original text:
* after word 154 ("institute") and before word 157 ("laying"), one word must be added. The pamphlet handles this by inserting "a" before "new government".<ref name="Beale Papers page 17">{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Beale_Papers.djvu/17|title=The Beale Papers, page 17|website=wikisource.org|access-date=22 April 2021}}</ref>
* after word 240 ("invariably") and before word 246 ("design"), one word must be removed (probably "a"). The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 240 and 250.<ref name="Beale Papers page 17"/>
* after word 466 ("houses") and before word 495 ("be"), ten words must be removed (probably "He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions"). The pamphlet has two labels for 480.<ref name="Beale Papers page 18">{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Beale_Papers.djvu/18|title=The Beale Papers, page 18|website=wikisource.org|access-date=22 April 2021}}</ref>
* after word 630 ("eat") and before word 654 ("to"), one word must be removed (probably "the"). The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 630 and 640.<ref name="Beale Papers page 18"/>
* after word 677 ("foreign") and before word 819 ("valuable"), one word must be removed (probably "their"). The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 670 and 680.<ref name="Beale Papers page 18"/>

Furthermore:
* Words 78 and 79 ("self-evident"), shown hyphenated, are counted as two words.
* The first letter of word 95 ("inalienable") is always used as a "u" ("unalienable").
* Words 509 and 510 of the modified text ("mean time") are counted as two words, despite being shown as one word.
* The first letter of the 811th word of the modified text ("fundamentally") is always used by Beale as a "y".
* The first letter of the 1005th word of the modified text ("have") is always used by Beale as an "x".

Finally, in the decoded text there are six errors, probably due to wrong transcription of the original paper:{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}
* ... 84, 57, 540, 217, 115, 71, 29, 84 (should be 85), 63, ... ''consistcd'' ("consisted").
* ... 53 (should be 54), 20, 125, 371, 38, 36, 10, 52, ... ''rhousand'' ("thousand").
* ... 2, 108 (should be 10, 8), 220, 106, 353, ... ''itron'' ("in iron").
* ... 440 (should be 40), 370, 643, 466, ... ''uith'' ("with").
* ... 14, 73, 84 (should be 85), ... ''thc'' ("the").
* ... 807, 81, 96 (should be 95), 405, 41, ... ''varlt'' ("vault").

Additional Declaration differences affect paper number 1: word 210 of the modified text ("more") is shown as "now"; words 919 and 920 of the modified text ("fellow citizens") are shown hyphenated (also affects paper number 3); two extra words ("made" and "the") are shown in modified text positions 1058 and 1188; a word is removed ("of") after modified text position 1125. The other slight changes probably have no consequences.

Many versions of the Declaration of Independence have been printed, with various adjustments to paragraphing, word inclusion, word changing, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The lack of clear images of the original ciphers, combined with the large quantity of numerals, has led to numerals being misprinted or omitted in many sources.

The Beale Papers text, on pages 20 to 21, gives an alleged translation of the second ciphertext, but it has nine differences from the actual one. The differences are shown here as {alleged decipherment | actual decipherment}:
<blockquote>I have deposited, in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford's, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles, belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number {“3,” | three} herewith:
The first deposit consisted of {one thousand | ten hundred} and fourteen pounds of gold, and {three thousand | thirty-} eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited {November, 1819 | Nov. eighteen nineteen}. The second was made {December, 1821 | Dec. eighteen twenty-one}, and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold, and twelve hundred and eighty-eight {pounds | } of silver; also jewels, obtained in St. Louis in exchange {for silver | } to save transportation, and valued at {$13,000 | thirteen thousand dollars}.
The above is securely packed in iron pots, with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone, and the vessels rest on solid stone, and are covered with others. Paper number {“1” | one} describes the exact locality of the vault, so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.</blockquote>

===Value===
The treasure's total weight is about 3&nbsp;[[ton]]s as described in inventory of the second cryptogram. This includes approximately 35,052&nbsp;[[troy oz]] gold, 61,200&nbsp;troy oz silver (worth about US $96,275,926 million and {{US$|1}},810,755.77 million, respectively, in October 2024<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kitco.com/gold.londonfix.html|title=Historical London Fix Prices Current Year&#124; Kitco|website=www.kitco.com|access-date=May 13, 2020}}</ref>) and jewels worth around {{US$|220,000}} in 2017.