TheCodeBreakers
leisure to devote some to cryptology, for in 1863 his short but epochal
book was published in Berlin by the respected house of Mittler & Sohn.
Three quarters of Die Geheimschriften und die Dechif-frir-kunst
concentrates on answering the problem that had vexed cryptanalysts for
more than 300 years: how to achieve a general solution for
polyalphabetic ciphers with repeating keywords. (One chapter zeroes in
on "The Decipherment of French Writing"—a rather ominous portent in a
book dedicated to the Count Albrecht von Roon, the Prussian minister of
war who molded the army that humbled France only seven years later.)
The polyalphabetic solution opened the doors to the cryptology of today.
But the 95-page volume seems to have stirred almost no comment at the
time. Kasiski himself lost interest in cryptology. He became an avid
amateur anthropologist, joining the Natural Science Society of Danzig,
unearthing prehistoric graves, and reporting on his work to learned
annaabi.ee 
