The purpose of this wiki is to summarize what we know and what we think about the solution to "The Secret" by B. Preiss.

This is not a place for debate or theories. There are great forums available at Tweleve.org and Quest4Treasure (links on the home page of this wiki).

Good luck! Feel free to edit and be sure to add images when you see something.

Glad to see another user has edited the FrontPage. I modified your formatting, but not your content Anonymous. Please consider editing your text to a **Neutral Point Of View** as shown in:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie

Thanks!

Anonymous said "The Illinois map theory is new to me. I don't see it. Ohio certainly, and maybe Florida, but two do not make a trend.--"

Good point. Just edit the generic solution to reflect your ideas. This is not a forum, you don't have to preserve my text, just edit right over it.

Tron, I removed your addition to the generic solution that said "(E) Jewel Placement - the location of the jewel within the image is an exact representation of the casque spot. In this way, the image (properly interpreted) is a map." because I have seen no evidence of this in either of the known solutions. If you want to add this back, please first show how it is true by including a comparison of the image and a map where the casque was found. If this "Jewel Placement" theory is true, it could be a very important clue!

Feel free to pilfer my treasure-hunting image directory at http://www.geocities.com/quantpsy/trove/

It contains many maps, cropped images, etc. that may save you some time.

Thanks forest_blight - I continue to be amazed at the great work that you all have done on this puzzle. I feel certain that we are making progress by re-organizing this good information!

Why is the "changes" option no longer available on the front page?

FB - they moved the changes button to the bottom of the page and renamed it to "Show changes to this wiki". Alternatively, you can type in the URL: thesecret.pbwiki.com\changes.php

Good luck!

I love what you guys have created here. This is an amazing amount of work! Thank you. I'll try to add without stepping on any toes. Changed P1 to reflect a Japanese Tea Garden solution. Created P12 solution for Washington Square Park. Status: Tea Garden for Park. Summary: New York P12 to V6 match.

Sonoran, thanks for the compliment. Thanks even more for adding the information on P1 and P12! Glad to see some interest in this hunt! Have there been any finds lately?

I am working on the To Do List. I cleaned up the Status Table. Mostly, I broke the latitudes and longitudes into separate columns to get a better understanding and concensus on the lat/ long coordinates. One request, could we add Salt Lake City to the Progress Map? What is the difference between blue and red highlights?

Nice work Sonoran Knight. I think we got the Progress Map from forest blight. I'm not sure what the difference between the colors was, perhaps some level of certainty. Although, I think we can only be "certain" about two sites, until someone else digs one up.

Just noticed I had "Florida" for Image 6 instead of "St. Augustine". Correction made.

Wow, if you switch between the Classic Mode editor and the Point-and-Click Mode editor it reveals all kind of problems! Lessons learned.

Trying to clean up the front page. Sidebar shortened to bring Status Table up. These changes seem to improve the page presentation, but are not set in stone. By all means, if ever disagree with my changes, revert or edit change as you see fit. This is certainly a work in progress tool. I won't be offended if you change my edits. Please help us understand your ideas for changes in the comments for that page.
I noticed we lost the darker green background for the tables. I have not looked into bringing those back yet.

Added Montreal and Salt Lake City to Progress Map. Added key in Progress Map to explain each location city's status. It seems we have four cities at "Possible" status. They are Boston, Montreal, Salt Lake City, and St. Louis. Let me know if you think I missed anything.

Because of recent evidence of a Salt lake City match I moved Verse 11 into the possible unmatched verses with 3, 5, and 10. Verse 11 has not gained a concensus to match Salt Lake City; so it seems better to at least not hold it up in Roanoke Island. This may even encourage new discussion. Although it is nice to have as many matches as we get to narrow down the rest, we may have to take this step back and revaluate our matches.

Reverted to an earlier version of the Status chart to reduce confusion.

I have returned the data to the original condition that reflects the consensus of the Quest 4 Treasure forum. Sorry, for any confusion I caused with my earlier changes.
Good hunting.
Sonoran

I noticed forest blight compiled a list on the Q4T forum back in 2006 that includes all the methods of showing the birth month for that painting. I added the list to the Summary Table. As always, please edit anything I missed or messed up. ;) I pulled Verse 2 back into verse match mix to represent the orginal consensus.

Sonoran Knight,
You have done well my friend. Keep up the great work.

Does anyone know what coordinate system might have been used by the author to establish the Lat Lon coordinates? I reviewed the 2 found keys locations in Google Earth, and the coordinates shown do not match the coordinates shown in the list above. This is caused when using differing coordinate sets (Datum) in mapping. I am a little familiar with it, doing some GIS work. Most of the online maps are using the WGS84 set, which was adopted AFTER the book was written, SO I was wondering if anyone had identified the appropriate set to be used.