41 6 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [March 



MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC 



The causes of the disaster are not due to faulty organisation, 

 but to misfortune in all risks which had to be undertaken. 



1. The loss of pony transport in March 191 1 obliged me to 

 start later than I had intended, and obliged the limits of stuff 

 transported to be narrowed. 



2. The weather throughout the outward journey, and es- 

 pecially the long gale in 83° S., stopped us. 



3. The soft snow in lower reaches of glacier again reduced 

 pace. 



We fought these untoward events with a will and conquered, 

 but it cut into our provision reserve. 



Every detail of our food supplies, clothing and depots made 

 on the interior ice-sheet and over that long stretch of 700 miles 

 to the Pole and back, worked out to perfection. The advance 

 party would have returned to the glacier in fine form and with 

 surplus of food, but for the astonishing failure of the man whom 

 we had least expected to fail. Edgar Evans was thought the 

 strongest man of the party. 



The Beardmore Glacier is not difficult in fine weather, but 

 on our return we did not get a single completely fine day; this 

 w^ith a sick companion enormously increased our anxieties. 



As I have said elsewhere we got Into frightfully rough ice 

 and Edgar Evans received a concussion of the brain — he died 

 a natural death, but left us a shaken party with the season unduly 

 advanced. 



But all the facts above enumerated were as nothing to the 

 surprise which awaited us on the Barrier. I maintain that our 

 arrangements for returning were quite adequate, and that no one 

 In the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces 

 which we encountered at this time of the year. On the summit 

 In lat. 85° 86° we had -20°, -30°. On the Barrier In lat. 

 82°, 10,000 feet lower, we had - 30° In the day, - 47° at night 

 pretty regularly, with continuous head wind during our day 

 marches. It Is clear that these circumstances come on very sud- 

 denly, and our wreck is certainly due to this sudden advent of 

 severe weather, which does not seem to have any satisfactory 



