There was once a kingdom which was renowned for the excellence of its mapmakers. Such was the accuracy, detail and beauty of their maps that each time you looked at one you would discover something new.
\nOne day the Guild of Cartographers came to the king and presented their proposal for the ultimate map of the kingdom \u2013 a map that would show not only rivers and towns, political boundaries and forests, but heights above sea level, languages spoken, geological composition of the earth, animal and plant species, prevailing winds, predominant religions, rainfall levels, trades and industries, average temperatures, the migrations of birds\u2026
\nThe king, appreciative of their skill and knowledge, and mindful of how the map would secure the prestige of the kingdom, gave them a huge chest of gold to fund the project.
\nSome centuries later (for the project took longer than expected, as the inevitable changes in the kingdom had to be redrawn into the map), the descendants of the Cartographers\u2019 Guild came to the then king, a distant descendant of the first one, with their finished map.
\n\u201cRight,\u201d said the king, \u201cunroll it on the banqueting table and let\u2019s have a look.\u201d
\n\u201cSorry sire,\u201d said the mapmakers, \u201cin order to accommodate all the detail we\u2019ve had to make it a very large-scale map, and it\u2019s too big to unroll on the table.\u201d
\n\u201cFine,\u201d said the king, \u201cyou courtiers move the table out of the way and we\u2019ll unroll it on the throne room floor.\u201d
\n\u201cI am afraid, sire,\u201d said the head of the Cartographer\u2019s Guild, \u201cto show all of the parish boundaries, family ties, varieties of fruit grown, and mineral deposits \u2013 not to mention the one-way streets and the historic monuments \u2013 we\u2019ve had to make it on too large a scale for the throne room to accommodate it.\u201d
\n\u201cRight,\u201d said the king, beginning to get a little tetchy, \u201cwe\u2019ll clear the soldiers from the parade ground outside and they can unroll it.\u201d
\n\u201cSire, we had to make it on a very big scale to accurately capture all the detail \u2013 I\u2019m afraid there will not be sufficient room on the parade ground.\u201d
\n\u201cWell what scale is it man?\u201d roared the king. \u201cOne in a thousand, one in five hundred, what?\u201d
\n\u201cErrm\u2026 In order to accommodate all the detail, we had to make it\u2026 one to one scale, sire.\u201d
\n\u2026 and to this day, if you visit the desert where the kingdom used to be, you can still see tattered scraps of the ultimate map blowing in the desolate breeze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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