31 CHAPTER III. CONSIDERATIONS AS TO PRESENT MEASURES FOR THE DISCOVERY AND RELIEF OF THE FRANKLIN EXPE DITION. Rational measures for relief must naturally have relation to well-considered probability in respect of the existing position of the absent expedition. But whilst certain limits may thus be set to the sphere of desirable research, all assumptions of deciding on any part of the extent lying betwixt Cape Walker, on the east, and the range of the Plover’s researches, on the west, must be mere speculation. As to cer tain parts, where the expedition under Sir John Franklin assuredly is not, the recent researches of Sir James Ross and Sir John Richardson have, within their very limited ranges, afforded con clusive results. But as to the regions proximate to Cape Walker, and from thence, westward, in a parallel remote from the northern face of the American continent, we yet have ascertained no thing ; and, therefore, even probable determinations can amount to no more than uncertain conjecture. Within any part of this wide expanse—above 1000 geographical miles in width, east and west, reckoned as far west as Point Barrow, and of three or four degrees of latitude in extent, north and south,—the expedition, if locked up in the ices remote from the American coast, may be reasonably sought for.