Around 1820, a traveler by the name of Thomas J. Beale was resting
in a Virginia hotel. Beale became a close firend with the owner of
the hotel, Robert Morris.
Beale visited the hotel again in 1822. During the stay, Beale
handed over a locked iron box to Morris and said, "If I do not come
back for this box within ten years, please open it.”
Time passed, but Beale did not return for his box. But to be
certan, Morris waited even longer than the requested ten years.
Finally, as promised, the lock was broken and 3 cryptograms with
a letter from Beale were retrieved. The letter contained
information pertaining to millions of dollars in gold that Beale
had excavated in a gold mine with his partners. The first page of
the cryptogram was said to describe the location of the hidden
treasure. The second page contained detailed information on the
contents of the treasure. The third page contained names of the
successors of the treasure. The cryptograms only contained numbers
listed in rows and could not be deciphered easily. The first and
third sheets have never been deciphered. The second has been
deciphered and describes the contents of the treasure which is
worth some $20 million at today's prices.
To find my treasure, you will need to try to decipher the
code below:
657,504,228,818,998,15,33,105,125,161,184,198,244,406,373,
353,349,342,323,312,296,279,244,192,155,138,121,115,47,36,
18,1320,1213,1205,1201,1186,1184,1158,1142,1071,1031,999,
977,806,795,748,654,648,1248,1088,1081,999,987,616,605,53,
106,125,171,263,224,222,220,142,89,85,83,48,37,12,4,1319,
1276,1265,1159,1142,1131,1124,1101,1097,1069,1031,1006,
1002,989,925,899,889,877,841,831,759,579,551,526,1132,1068,
1087,1048,998,991,925,797,779,773,747,616,603,600,594,592,
581,531,502,493,389,323,308,y,1196,1160,1144,1088,1084,
1080,1021,998,978,968,869,797,786,771,747,1132,1088,13,12,
8,10,3,1321,1262,x,z,1073,1043,1019,1031,287,244
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.