Draw two noughts-and-crosses grids and two crosses, and write the alphabet through the 26 compartments. The second grid and second cross get a dot in each compartment. To write a letter, draw the walls of its pen â and the dot, if it has one.
The alphabet in four pens
Freemasons used this cipher for their records more than two hundred years ago, which is why it is sometimes called the masons’ cipher. Confederate soldiers are said to have used it during the American Civil War. Its real trick is that the message stops looking like writing at all — someone glancing at the page may not realize there is anything to read.
Print this page and you get a worksheet: how the cipher works, where it came from, and the puzzles to crack, with the machine and the menus left off.
Print this page as a worksheet Its sheet in the pack Try the challengesLonger, harder and written for grown-ups. Worth a look when this page runs out.