Scott complains of a shortage of oil at several of his last depots.  There is no doubt that this shortage was due to the perishing of the leather washers of the tins which contained the paraffin oil.  All these tins had been subjected to the warmth of the sun in summer and the autumn temperatures, which were unexpectedly cold.  In his Voyage of the Discovery Scott wrote as follows of the tins in which they drew their oil when sledging:  “Each tin had a small cork bung, which was a decided weakness; paraffin creeps in the most annoying manner, and a good deal of oil was wasted in this way, especially when the sledges were travelling over rough ground and were shaken or, as frequently happened, capsized.  It was impossible to make these bungs quite tight, however closely they were jammed down, so that in spite of a trifling extra weight a much better fitting would have been a metallic screwed bung.  To find on opening a fresh tin of oil that it was only three-parts full was very distressing, and of course meant that the cooker had to be used with still greater care."[349] Amundsen wrote of his paraffin:  “We kept it in the usual cans but they proved too weak; not that we lost any paraffin, but Bjaaland had to be constantly soldering to keep them tight."[350]

Our own tins were furnished with the metallic screwed stoppers which Scott recommended.  There was no trouble reported[351] until we came up to One Ton Camp when on the Search Journey.  Here was the depot of food and oil which I had laid in the previous autumn for the Polar Party, stowed in a canvas ‘tank’ which was buried beneath seven feet of snow; the oil was placed on the top of the snow, in order that the red tins might prove an additional mark for the depot.  When we dug out the tank the food inside was almost uneatable owing to the quantity of paraffin which had found its way down through seven feet of snow during the winter and spring.

We then found the Polar Party and learned of the shortage of oil.  After our return to Cape Evans some one was digging about the camp and came across a wooden case containing eight one-gallon tins of paraffin.  These had been placed there in September 1911, to be landed at Cape Crozier by the Terra Nova when she came down.  The ship could not take them:  they were snowed up during the winter, lost and forgotten, until dug up fifteen months afterwards.  Three tins were full, three empty, one a third full and one two-thirds full.

There can be no doubt that the oil, which was specially volatile, tended to vaporize and escape through the stoppers, and that this process was accelerated by the perishing, and I suggest also the hardening and shrinking, of the leather washers.  Another expedition will have to be very careful on this point:  they might reduce the risk by burying the oil.

The second point about which something must be said is the unexpected cold met by Scott on the Barrier, which was the immediate cause of the disaster.  “No one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year....  It is clear that these circumstances come on very suddenly, and our wreck is certainly due to this sudden advent of severe weather, which does not seem to have any satisfactory cause."[352]