MEMORIAL OF C. W. HAYES 83 



prise of his was the building of a boat, and this, with the gun purchased 

 out of some of his first earnings, provided the means for these excursions. 

 He cared little for the outdoor sports of the average boy, and, though up 

 to the time of his last illness physically very active, never took up any 

 athletics. Most of his life he was too busy for such pastimes, and his 

 physical energy was always directed toward accomplishing some useful 

 purpose. 



His character was one of strong contrasts, for, unlike most boys who 

 loved the out-of-doors, he was withal a great reader. This continued 

 throughout his student days and well into his professional career. He 

 was so reticent about expressing opinions on subjects outside of his own 

 specialty that few, even of his intimates, knew how well grounded he was 

 in the classics of English literature. No doubt this background of ex- 

 tensive reading gave him that clearness and forcibleness of expression 

 which characterize his writings. Later in life, when each day's work 

 exhausted his ability for mental concentration, his reading was chiefly 

 with the purpose of relaxation. He did not obtain the relaxation that 

 some brain workers find in scanning serious works on subjects outside his 

 own field of research. This was probably due to his inability to think 

 on a subject without reducing it to its ultimate analysis. In other words, 

 he could not touch on a serious subject lightly for the sake of relaxation. 



It appears that as a boy Hayes's interest was not specially directed to 

 geologic phenomena. His home was in a region where the terminal 

 moraine masked the bedrock features. Here the Alleghany Plateau 

 merged with the till plains of Ohio. Yet close at hand were bluffs of 

 Carboniferous sandstone, across which his rambles frequently carried him. 

 His out-of-door interests, like those of most boys, were centered on the 

 more tangible of nature's phenomena. His collections of plants and birds 

 meant more to him than to most country lads, for he not only collected, 

 but he also studied, his trophies. As a result he became well grounded 

 in the local botany and zoology and developed a taste for natural history, 

 which was shown many years later in the jottings of his ISTicaraguan and 

 Alaskan journals. Even when his attention was in some measure directed 

 to geologic features by the conversation of a very intelligent young coal 

 miner, who was a frequent visitor at the Hayes household, they awakened 

 no special interest in the science to which he was to devote his life. The 

 same was true during the undergraduate days at Oberlin, where chemistry 

 and mathematics engaged his principal attention. It was not, indeed, 

 until he came under the inspiring influence of George H. Williams at 

 Johns Hopkins that he was attracted to geology. Had other influences 

 during his formative period been active, it is probable that his life's 



