Matt Roth:  Bacon was writing in Latin in the year 1252. Were redwop an anagram for powder in Latin and/or Middle English, as well as in modern English, it would be a statistical monster indeed. This anagram's history keeps getting weirder. I should say, however, that Bacon's letter is  quite Nabokovian in its own way...” the key to the cipher is evidently a piece of parchment with holes in it.  When this is superimposed upon the page of writing, the words appearing through the holes constitute a clear and connected description of the preparation of black powder."
PS: In my post on Wilson's "Pickerel Pond" poem, I should have noted the reference to Nova Zembla!

JM: A statistical monster… I heard this expression somewhere before: Nabokov? 
Nova Zembla, nabob,balletomanes, Russian words and then Rio de Janeiro reverts into “Orange”. Important observation concerning Bacon’s writs in Latin and the very peculiar anagram for “powder.”

Matt’s observation that Bacon’s letter is “quite  Nabokovian,” also can illustrate, by this parallel, how certain story-lines (I only experimented with ADA) may be followed, independently, when we retain specific words and cover the rest with a “mascodagama” mask ( a template), to  look thru its orifices.  It’s the same process for the  rotating cylinders with  needles  in music- boxes, perhaps also in  Babbage’s first computer At present any “search” button applied to VN’s digitalized  full-text serves as a kind of  “parchment with holes”’. I tried selecting “bout/bouteiller” and followed this  lead once, just for amusement, when butlers, taverns and their love-affairs came to life in a private kind of plot. It’s like playing several games of chess at the same time.