Decipherment of Charred Documents

David A. Black is an Examiner of Questioned Documents at Los Angeles, California, and a member of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners. A graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, Mr. Black has since 1937 been actively engaged in this field as an associate of Clark Sellers. Recently he was confronted with the task of rapidly deciphering large numbers of charred papers and after experimenting with all reported methods of decipherment devised the procedure described in his present article.-EDIToR.