They are covered with scales, each scale consisting of a number of little flaky ice sheets superimposed, and all 'dipping' at the same angle.

It suggests to me a surface with sastrugi and layers of fine dust on which the snow has taken hold.
We are within 5 miles of Cape Royds and ought to get there.
_Wednesday, January_ 4, P.M. .-- This work is full of surprises.
At 6 A.M.we came through the last of the Strait pack some three miles north of Cape Royds.

We steered for the Cape, fully expecting to find the edge of the pack ice ranging westward from it.

To our astonishment we ran on past the Cape with clear water or thin sludge ice on all sides of us.

Past Cape Royds, past Cape Barne, past the glacier on its south side, and finally round and past Inaccessible Island, a good 2 miles south of Cape Royds.