I culled A LOT of this information from other people on this forum and while I didn’t credit them it is not because I am trying to pass all of this off as my own but because I don’t remember who discovered what and I am not going to read through all the posts again to find out.  So if you feel slighted don’t be afraid to take credit for whatever piece of information below that you discovered.  And in my heart, all of you get A LOT of credit. BP could have chosen any gems or even the same 12 gems (for that matter, why 12) or offered money or gold for the casques.  Or even just a hearty congratulations.  Why did he choose these particular gems?  And then it hit me.  He chose the 12 birthstones because they could be confirmed by multiple things that he could put in a picture.  Every picture has a gem and a flower and in some cases (5) a clock which when taken all together definitively indicates the month.  Now, of course, this was discovered long ago but what I think has been overlooked is why he did this.  Knowing what month the flower, the gem and the clock represent doesn’t help us solve the puzzle(or at least it hasn’t so far), so why do it?  I believe this tells us how the puzzle is structured.  Every step of the puzzle is confirmed definitively by something else. For example, the latitude and longitude of Cleveland are in picture 4 but there could be other cities on that same latitude and longitude.  However, the chances of there being another city with that same latitude and longitude AND a building shaped exactly like the image in the picture are probably zero.  So the combination of the latitude and longitude or the rebus along with the building definitively confirms the city. It is the same with the parks.  All of these cities have many, many parks but the images embedded in the picture will definitively confirm one(and only one) particular park. I believe that BP embedded instructions on how to locate the casques into various verses. The first chapter Written in water (V9) L1, L2 The structure/building which marks the starting point of the trail to the park will be on (or very near) a street whose name has to do with water. For the Chicago hunt, the Water Tower is 806 N. Michigan Ave. For the Cleveland hunt, the Terminal Tower is on W. Superior Ave. For the Milwaukee hunt, the City Hall is on N. Water St.  The address is 200 E. Wells St. but if your looking at the building from the same orientation as the picture you are on N. Water St. Interestingly enough, all of these streets also have directions in them which at the starting point are the opposite of the direction that you have to go.  Might not be useful but it is interesting. One thing that I have not done (and it may destroy this line of reasoning) is to confirm that these streets had the same names in 1982. From end to end (V2) L4 The pictures are maps with one end of the trail being the structure/building that is hidden in the picture and the other end being the jewel which represents the park(cross street) where the casque is hidden. For the Chicago hunt, the building is the Water Tower. For the Cleveland hunt, the building is the Terminal Tower. For the Milwaukee hunt, the building is the City Hall. And my hat is off to whomever it was that matched up the buildings in the pictures to the actual buildings.  While the Water Tower is obvious once you compare it to the image, I had to look at the other two many, many, many times before I was convinced. Now, moving from the confirmed to the speculative, I believe that: For the picture 1 hunt, the structure is Golden Gate Park.  Or it could be the leg of the table but that doesn’t really look like a building to me.  So as the jewel is north of GGP in the picture I think the casque is in a park that is north of GGP. For the picture 2 hunt, I have no idea but I do not think it is Fort Sumter.  The shape isn’t right. For the picture 3 hunt, I have no idea but that island shape looks promising. For the picture 6 hunt, I have no idea. For the picture 7 hunt, I have no idea. For the picture 8 hunt, wilhouse has pretty much confirmed that it is (or was) the City Zoo in Houston’s Hermann Park.  While I like my theory, it‘s a shame as it puts the casque within the City Zoo which is now gone.  So while I think he got it right the Houston casque is probably unrecoverable.  The only thing I would add is that the jewel is south of the column with the giant ball perhaps it might be fruitful to look in that direction if in fact there is anything in that direction. For the picture 9 hunt, I think it is the cutout in his collar.  Or it could be the upside down ziggurat just under the cutout in his collar.  Anybody know where we can find a ziggurat in the States? For the picture 11 hunt, I think it is the castle on the box. For the picture 12 hunt, I think it is the onion-domed building in the stained-glass window. In jewel’s direction (V7) L10 This line only makes sense as part of a set of instructions because there are no jewels to go in the direction of in the parks.  The hunt is to find the casques not the jewels.  The only jewels are in the pictures. You start at the structure/building that is hidden in the picture and from there you move in whatever direction the jewel is in relation to the structure/building in the picture. In picture 5 (the Chicago hunt) the jewel is south of the Water Tower.  If you are standing in front of the Water Tower the closest N-S street is Michigan Ave. and if you walk south down Michigan Ave. it leads you to Congress Pkwy. which is the cross street mentioned in the verse.  AND TO CONGRESS, R IS KNOWN.  Congress Pkwy. crosses Michigan Ave. directly in front of the entrance to Grant Park. In picture 4 (the Cleveland hunt) the jewel is east of the Terminal Tower which is on Superior Ave.  If you walk east on Superior Ave it leads you to Liberty Blvd, now Martin Luther King Drive, which is the cross street represented in the picture by the capital L next to the Liberty Bell.  If you then turn to face the water Liberty Blvd dead ends into the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.  This one is a little tricky because the entire length of MLK Drive is Rockefeller Park which is why you are told to SEEK THE COLUMNS in order to confirm the correct park.  Also this One leads me to conclude that you only have to consider the four cardinal directions because if the building were NW of the park like it is in the picture it would be in the water.  Although this may not hold true for all the hunts. In picture 10 (the Milwaukee hunt) the jewel is again south of the building.  If you are standing at the NW corner of the City Hall building (which is where the image is taken from) the street you are on (1st St.) leads you to Lincoln Ave. which is the cross street mentioned in the verse.  CAST IN COPPER. (I wrote this several months ago and have since decided that this just doesn’t work for the Milwaukee hunt unless we have the solution totally wrong.  But I thought I would include it just anyway just so you could see where my head was at.) Face the water (V3) L10 This tells you which way to turn when you get to the cross street.  You turn in whatever direction causes you to face the water.  And I believe it will be a large body of water not just a river or a small lake. For the Chicago hunt when you get to the intersection of Michigan Ave. and Congress Pkwy you turn left toward Lake Michigan and into Grant Park. For the Cleveland hunt when you get to the intersection of Superior Ave. and Liberty Blvd., now Martin Luther King Drive, you turn left toward Lake Erie and follow Liberty Blvd until you get to the Cultural Gardens. In the Milwaukee hunt you are already facing the water when you get onto Lincoln Memorial Drive. Cars abound (V10) L7 On your way from the structure/building to the park you will be on two busy streets.  While I mentioned walking the path, I actually recommend driving as I don’t think there is anything important on the paths from the starting point to the park with the exception of the cross street.  Also the distances don’t necessarily lend themselves to walking.  For example, the Terminal Tower is 5.5 miles away from the Cultural Gardens.  Just a good stretch of the legs as Maureen O’Hara said to John Wayne in The Quiet Man, but I recommend driving. Step on nature (V8) L8 All casques will be buried in parks/gardens.  And they will probably be in out of the way places off of the path/sidewalk in these parks.  What is the point of saying this unless it is a general instruction for all the puzzles.  Where else would he bury them?  Next to an electric pole on a busy street under six inches of concrete?  I don’t think so, although that is where they may be now. With two maps (V11) L8 The picture and the verse.  The verses give you the instructions which allow you to interpret the pictures.  The picture then gets you to the park and confirms that it is the correct park.  The correct park will be confirmed by (at least) one object in the picture. For the Chicago hunt, Grant Park was confirmed by the Bowman statue at the entrance and the fairy (without wings) in the sculpture “The Spirit of the Great Lakes” in the outdoor courtyard of the Art Institute (which is in Grant Park). For the Cleveland hunt, the Cultural Gardens were confirmed by the arch and the fountain inside the arch. Then you use the picture, the verse, and the actual site together to locate the confirmer that ties the picture to the correct verse. For the Chicago hunt it was the fence which is mentioned in the verse and can be seen both in the picture and in the park. For the Cleveland hunt it was the columns which are mentioned in the verse and can be seen both in the picture and the garden. For the Milwaukee hunt it was the birch tree which is mentioned in the verse and can be seen both in the picture and the park. Get permission To dig out (V5) L17, 18 In both these lines and the next ones we are told to dig.  I think we all know that we have to dig so why mention something that we already obviously know unless they are part of a general set of instruction for finding all the casques. While we all know that BP didn’t ask permission to bury the casques it would have been foolish of him to expect us to do the same in digging them up.  Especially since you will most likely have to dig multiple times.  Of course you are going to ask for permission(probably many times) and while I know that the people who dug up the Grant Park casque didn’t ask for permission that is just not smart. And dig To achieve By dauntless and inconquerable Determination Your goal. (V11) L17, 18, 19, 20, 21 I don’t think this is just an empty platitude, I believe that BP knew (despite what he said about his concern that the hunt would be solved in a just a few months) that there would be repeated failure in this hunt and he is telling us to just keep at it. Don’t give up if you don’t find it the first time (or the hundredth). Socrates, Pindar, Apelles Free speech, couplet, birch To find casque’s destination (V4) L10, L11, 12 The word birch rhymes with verse so I think the line is supposed to read FREE VERSE, COUPLET.  Now separate the initial letters of each couplet that rhymes from the initial letters of the free verse(i.e. the lines that don’t rhyme).  You can do this for all the verses(although some of them are all free verse with no lines that rhyme), however, for reasons that I will make clear below I think the only verses that matter here are Verses 1, 3, 7, and 12.  In all the verses below I have highlighted the lines that rhyme. I will start with Verse 12 as we already know the answer for that one. Where M and B are set in stone And to Congress, R is known L sits and left Beyond his shoulder Is the Fair Folks’ Treasure holder The end of ten by thirteen Is your clue Fence and fixture Central too For finding jewel casque Seek the sounds Of rumble Brush and music Hush. So you end up with: WABTICBH which when you rearrange the letters and use the B’s as blank spaces between the words you get: CHI B WA B T or filling in the letters left out of the abbreviations and removing the B’s - Chicago Water Tower.  As we all know this is the tower in Picture 5.  This also explains the use of the word Hush in the verse, BP needed a word that started with H and rhymed with Brush. On to Verse 1 Fortress north Cold as glass Friendship south Take your task To the number Nine eight two Through the wood No lion fears In the sky the water veers Small of scale Step across Perspective should not be lost In the center of four alike Small, split, Three winged and slight What we take to be Our strongest tower of delight Falls gently In December night Looking back from treasure ground There’s the spout! A whistle sounds. So you end up with: NISPOILA which when you rearrange the letters and use the I’s as blank spaces between the words you get: NO I S I PLA or filling in the letters left out of the abbreviations and removing the I’s – New Orleans Spanish Plaza.  And there is a Spanish Plaza in New Orleans. On to Verse 3 If Thucydides is North of Xenophon Take five steps In the area of his direction A green tower of lights In the middle section Near those Who pass the coliseum With metal walls Face the water Your back to the stairs Feel at home All the letters Are here to see Eighteenth day Twelfth hour Lit by lamplight In truth, be free. This time use the letters that begin the free verse lines: INTANWWFYFAETL which when you rearrange the letters and use the extra WFA as blank spaces between the words you get: FT W WAYNE F LIN A T or filling in the letters left out of the abbreviations and removing the WFA – Ft. Wayne Lincoln Tower.  And there is a Lincoln Tower in Ft. Wayne Indiana built in 1929.  There is also a Coliseum Drive which is near several parks. And finally Verse 7 At stone wall’s door The air smells sweet Not far away High posts are three Education and Justice For all to see Sounds from the sky Near ace is high Running north, but first across In jewel’s direction Is an object Of Twain’s attention Giant Pole Giant step To the place The casque is kept. I first started anagramming this one using the same method of separating the letters that I used above and ended up with some wrong answers that wilhouse pointed out.  So I think for this one you anagram all the letters together: ATNHEFSNRIIOGGTT which when you rearrange the letters and use the G’s as blank spaces between the words you get HST G NATION G FRET or filling in the letters left out of the abbreviations and removing the G’s – Houston National Forest.  This one didn’t anagram to my satisfaction as you end up with an extra I but there is a Sam Houston National Forest in Houston. Now as cool as all that was this is the really cool part and the reason that I think that this particular solution only deals with the above 4 verses.  Going back to verse 4 and using the words Socrates, Pindar, Apelles, birch along with information that we already have from the pictures(i.e. the latitudes and longitudes) you can as BP put it, “wed one picture with one verse.” Birch = 5 letters, picture 5 we know is Chicago goes with verse 12 which gives us Chicago Water Tower. Apelles = 7 letters, picture 7 we are pretty sure from the longitude and latitude is New Orleans and verse 1 gives us New Orleans Spanish Plaza. Socrates = 8 letters, picture 8 we are pretty sure from the longitude and latitude is Houston and verse 7 gives us Sam Houston National Forest. (sort of) Pindar = 6 letters, by process of elimination picture 6 goes with verse 3 which gives us Ft. Wayne Lincoln Tower. So to sum up. Verse 1 goes with Picture 7 and give us a starting location of Spanish Plaza in New Orleans Verse 3 goes with Picture 6 and gives us a starting location of Lincoln Tower in Ft. Wayne Verse 7 goes with Picture 8 and gives us a starting location of Sam Houston National Forest in Houston. Verse 12 goes with Picture 5 and gives us a starting location of the Water Tower in Chicago. Just some further thoughts that might not lead to anything but are rattling around in my head so I will throw them out for your consideration.  Two of the verses (9 and 11) are all free verse, nothing rhymes but there are two additional verses that do follow the free verse, couplet pattern. The first comes right before the pictures and second right after the pictures.  It is possible that some information is hidden in these two extra verses. Also if you like the idea of the number of the letters in a word indicating a picture(or a verse) then you might find this interesting.  There is only on significant instance of a one letter word in all of the verses(I know that there are various A’s in the verses but I said significant) and that is the v in verse 10.  In addition there is only one 12-letter word in all of the verses, remuneration.  I know that wonderstone’s is also 12 letters but I don’t count that one because you need to add the possessive s in order to get to 12. For finding jewel casque Seek the sounds Of rumble (V12) L11, 12, 13 Trains? Take your task To the number (V1) L4, 5, 6 This could refer to the longitudes and latitudes numbers hidden in the picture. Although, I would be more comfortable with this if it said numbers instead of number.  However, sometimes there is only one positioning number so perhaps that is what it means.  On the other hand, since not all of the cities can be found by lat/lon numbers, e.g. Milwaukee, perhaps this isn’t part of the instructions after all.

Thank you for taking the time to compile and type up all of your (and others') thoughts. Shseverin11

Wow digger, lots of work!!! I'm from N.O. and have felt that verse 7 is N.O. Near ace is high...Jax  (jacks)brewery. Giant pole, flagpole in Jackson Square. Work has me bogged down but I will look into your ideas.Thanks! Lafitte

It's all pretty good stuff digger.  Still trying to absorb it all and fit into my own little pea brain.  Nice work! ps; At the base of the Varrazano and at the edge of John Paul Jones Park is....TaDa    Shore Road.  hmmm but i think the structure/building for v10 is the Twin Tower, not the domes,  and work your way through the stained glass and down the dress into the Narrows inlet  (where the jewel is in the image). Facing the water would be from the top of Tower Two Obsevation Deck.

All of this missing letter stuff is interesting but it should not be relied upon. We can already see from Verses we Know are matches that useing this method would lead us to places way away from the correct location.

Unknown: All casques will be buried in parks/gardens. Digger, the thought process is impressive, but again...I have to take some issue with the execution. I don't know why he would embed random "general" instructions like these in all the verses FOR all the verses...if I've understood your meaning. However, I'm not going to argue your points. Except for one: The official rules state that he specifically did not bury any casques in public or private flower beds. Most parks' gardens contain those. So any casque buried in any park would have to actually NOT be in the garden areas. And this does not include other places casques might be buried--that aren't parks--which is entirely possible. There is nothing that refutes the idea.

scottrocks7 wrote:: All of this missing letter stuff is interesting but it should not be relied upon. We can already see from Verses we Know are matches that useing this method would lead us to places way away from the correct location. Scott, as has been mentioned before, the only locations that we know are correct are Grant Park in Chicago and the Cultural Gardens in Cleveland because those casques have already been dug up.  Everything else is speculation and should be treated that way until another casque is unearthed.

shecrab wrote:: Digger, the thought process is impressive, but again...I have to take some issue with the execution. I don't know why he would embed random "general" instructions like these in all the verses FOR all the verses...if I've understood your meaning. However, I'm not going to argue your points. Except for one: The official rules state that he specifically did not bury any casques in public or private flower beds. Most parks' gardens contain those. So any casque buried in any park would have to actually NOT be in the garden areas. And this does not include other places casques might be buried--that aren't parks--which is entirely possible. There is nothing that refutes the idea. you have understood my meaning perfectly and you are correct about the gardens, point taken.

Here is another interesting (but incomplete as you will see) idea. As has been mentioned in a previous post and can be confirmed by anyone with a dictionary, the definition of the word casque is: 1) a helmet or other armor for the head. 2) Zool. a helmet or a helmet-like structure, as on the bill of most hornbills. This seems to be an odd word to choose to refer to the box in which enclosed the keys, especially since the "correct" word is only 3 words above that one (at least in my dictionary).  It seems that he should have used the word casket.  The definition of casket is: 1) a small box or chest for valuables, esp. jewels. 2) Chiefly US another word for coffin.  The origin of this word seems to come from the word cassette which in Old French means little box. I can think of 4 reasons for this. 1) It is a mistake.  Somehow the wrong word got used.  Either he picked the wrong word or someone else in the publishing chain made a mistake.  This, however, seems unlikely.  BP put alot of time and effort into this hunt and I don't think a mistake that large would have escaped him.  Also he was a magazine editor, I imagine you don't remain a magazine editor for long if you make mistakes like this.  So I don't think it was a mistake. 2) BP had a better dictionary than I do and there is some obscure connection between these words.  This is certainly possible and I would appreciate it if anyone who has access to the OED would look up the word casque and post the definitive definition of this word. 3) This was a publishing decision in order to avoid using the word casket which most Americans would interpret as coffin. 4) BP was trying to draw our attention to this word by obviously using it wrong in order to convey a message.  It is a clever use of wordplay as it is close enough in spelling and pronunciation to casket that it is easy to read right over it and either not notice or not put much thought into the fact that it is the "wrong" word.  So if you anagram the word casque you get: USA - a fairly obvious meaning as this is where he buried the majority of the casques QEC - when I look at it I see a 3-letter city code for Quebec City.  Unfortunately, this is where the idea becomes incomplete.  I can't find any 3-letter city codes that give this combination for Quebec City.  I don't mean the airport codes, those are incredibly easy to find.  For example, the abbreviation for the city of Chicago is CHI while the airport code(O'Hare, at least) is ORD.  City codes for other cities include, Houston = HST, St. Louis = STL, Boston = BOS.......you get the idea.  I have looked for this and can't find it so I was wondering if anyone had any insight into this. Anyway, looking forward to another lengthy diatribe about the evils of anagrams from shecrab. Now I am being cheeky

In the V9 thread from April, 2007 we discussed this issue - two likely explanations of BP's use of the word "casque" are (1) he saw it on that sign at the Fountain of Youth Park and simply adopted the word without bothering to look it up; (2) He stylized the spelling of "cask," as in The Cask of Amontillado .

I would be more inclined to follow Digger's leads if he managed to link verse 1 with Houston instead of New Orleans... but as you all know I am terribly biased... wilhouse

wilhouse wrote:: I would be more inclined to follow Digger's leads if he managed to link verse 1 with Houston instead of New Orleans... wilhouse, I''m counting on you to prove my theory by finding that casque using verse 7

LOL, now that's funny. wilhouse

Unknown: USA - a fairly obvious meaning as this is where he buried the majority of the casques QEC - when I look at it I see a 3-letter city code for Quebec City.  Unfortunately, this is where the idea becomes incomplete.  I can't find any 3-letter city codes that give this combination for Quebec City.  I don't mean the airport codes, those are incredibly easy to find.  For example, the abbreviation for the city of Chicago is CHI while the airport code(O'Hare, at least) is ORD.  City codes for other cities include, Houston = HST, St. Louis = STL, Boston = BOS.......you get the idea.  I have looked for this and can't find it so I was wondering if anyone had any insight into this. Anyway, looking forward to another lengthy diatribe about the evils of anagrams from shecrab.  Now I am being cheeky Hee hee....sorry, there Digger...I have been sick with the flu and only just saw this. I guess I missed my opportunity! I think I'll save the lecturing for when I can yell without coughing.