A Journey into the Interior of the Earth Chapter 3

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Chapter 3 of A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Mallison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Chapter 3 The Runic Writing Exercises the Professor.
Undoubtedly it is runic, said the professor, bending his brows, but there is a secret in it, and I mean to discover the key. A violent gesture finished the sentence. Sit there, he added, holding out his fist towards the table. Sit there and write. I was seated in a trice. Now I would dictate to you every letter of our alphabet which corresponds with each of these Icelandic characters. We will see what that will give us. But by St. Michael, if you should dare to deceive me... The dictation commenced. I did my best. Every letter was given me one after the other, with the following remarkable result.
M-M-R-N-L-L-S. Esrivel, Sec Aide. S-G-T-S-S-M-F. V N T E I E F Nierke KTSAMN At rates.
R-R-I-L-S-A.
NVCRC.
I.e. Abbs. CCRMI.
EEVTVI.
DT, IAC, Osebo. KDI.
When this work was ended, my uncle tore the paper from me and examined it attentively for a long time.
What does it all mean? He kept repeating mechanically. Upon my honor, I could not have enlightened him. Besides, he did not ask me, and he went on talking to himself. This is what is called a cryptogram, or cipher, he said, in which letters are purposely thrown in confusion, which if properly arranged, would reveal their sense. Only think that under this jargon there may lie concealed the clue to some great discovery. As for me, I was of opinion that there was nothing at all in it, though of course I took care not to say so.
Then the professor took the book and the parchment and diligently compared them together. These two writings are not by the same hand, he said. The cipher is of later date than the book, and undoubted proof of which I see in a moment. The first letter is a double M, a letter which is not to be found in Turlison's book, and which was only added to the alphabet in the fourteenth century. Therefore there are two hundred years between the manuscript and the document. I admitted that this was a strictly logical conclusion. I am therefore led to imagine, continued my uncle, that some possessor of this book wrote these mysterious letters. But who was that possessor? Is his name nowhere to be found in the manuscript? My uncle raised his spectacles, took up a strong lens, and carefully examined the blank pages of the book. On the front of the second, the title page, he noticed a sort of stain which looked like an ink-plot.
But in looking at it very closely, he thought he could distinguish some half-effaced letters.
My uncle at once fastened upon this as the centre of interest, and he laboured at that blot, until by the help of his microscope he ended by making out the following runic characters which he read without difficulty.
Arnsachnism, he cried in triumph. Why, that is the name of another Icelander, a savant of the sixteenth century, a celebrated alchemist. I gazed at my uncle with satisfactory admiration. Those alchemists, he resumed, Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus, were the real and only savants of their time. They made discoveries at which we are astonished. Has not this sagnism concealed under his cryptogram some surprising invention? It is so. It must be so. The professor's imagination took fire at this hypothesis. No doubt, I ventured to reply. But what interest would he have in thus hiding so marvellous a discovery? Why, why, how can I tell? Did not Galileo do the same by Saturn? We shall see. I will get at the secret of this document, and I will neither sleep nor eat until I have found it out. My comment on this was a half-suppressed, Oh! Nor you either, Axel, he added. The deuce, said I to myself. Then, it is lucky I have eaten two dinners today. First of all, we must find out the key to this cipher. That cannot be difficult. At these words I quickly raised my head, but my uncle went on soliloquising. There's nothing easier. In this document there are a hundred and thirty-two letters, viz. seventy-seven consonants and fifty-five vowels. This is the proportion found in southern languages, whilst northern tongues are much richer in consonants, therefore this is a southern language. These were very fair conclusions, I thought. But what language is it? Here I looked for a display of learning, but I met instead with profound analysis. This sagnism, he went on, was a very well-informed man. Now since he was not writing in his own mother tongue, he would naturally select that which was currently adopted by the choice spirits of the sixteenth century. I mean Latin. If I am mistaken, I can but try Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, or Hebrew. But the savants of the sixteenth century generally wrote in Latin. I am therefore entitled to pronounce this a priori to be Latin. It is Latin. I jumped up in my chair. My Latin memories rose in revolt against the notion that these barbarous words could belong to the sweet language of Virgil. Yes, it is Latin, my uncle went on. But it is Latin confused and in disorder. Pertubata seo inordinata, as Euclid has it.