In a letter Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton wrote to his friend Kitty Pogson, a London socialite, during his expedition in September 1902, he describes the extreme cold and its catastrophic effects on the crew.
"We unfortunately lost one of our men in a very bad blizzard by his falling over an ice cliff, and we nearly lost one of the lieutenants and three more men," Shackleton wrote. "The weather is pretty cold now, the lowest temperature having been -62 Fahrenheit [minus 52.2 degrees Celsius]."
