Mercury, being some 43,000,000 miles from the Sun, was the basic unit. And that was necessary.
The Solar System could not be drawn to scale unless the inner planets were crowded in fractionally close to the Sun.
Here, the positions of the planets were indicated by dots whose map-distance from the Sun receded inward in logarithmic ratio to actual distance.
Pluto, for instance, being one hundred times farther from the Sun than Mercury in real distance, appeared by the map to be only, roughly, twenty times as far.
The position of the dot-planets on the map of course indicated the exact date of the day when the map was drawn.
The finely drawn X showed the position of the hibernaculum asteroid on that day.
Since then, roughly eighty-two years ago, X had moved in its orbit. Where to?
That was the problem.
Unterzuyder sweated. It was said by the Unterzuyders, with possible justification, that only an Unterzuyder could think like an Unterzuyder. How often his father had told him that. But he was confused.
Naturally. The map was meant to confuse.