MEMORIAL OF 0. W. HAYES 91 



very full observations on tides, at a great many places and through a long 

 period of time, and know thoroughly all the influences modifying tidal action, 

 and they haven't these data by any means. Geologists have a very healthy 

 suspicion of 'closet theorists,' for the science has been led on many a wild- 

 goose chase by such parties. Their theories have been very fine, but they have 

 not stood the test of the geologist's hammer. In short, the conditions are so 

 very complex, there are so many variables, that one must look on a formula 

 which would express the whole thing as just a little beyond even Sir William 

 Thompson. When he confines himself to a molecule, no one will object; there 

 are plenty of them. But when he gets to taking liberties with this earth, the 

 geologists must be allowed a word, for it is the only one they have." 



This somewhat whimsical comment on the speculations relating to the 

 earth^s crust expresses a keynote in Hayeses mental attitude. In all his 

 scientific work it was the seeking of facts and their necessary interpreta- 

 tion that interested him most. That he could grasp the broader problems 

 of geology, requiring a scientific imagination, his publications, notably in 

 physiography, clearly show. He was not, however, inclined to speculate 

 far beyond the established facts. In this lay his strength, but it also 

 involved a loss to geology. Had he, with his fundamental training in 

 the earth's sciences and remarkable power of analysis and exposition, 

 turned to some of the more speculative aspects of geology, he would have 

 advanced the science in other fields than those which he made his own. 



He wrote in a letter of February^ 1885 : 



"My admiration is at present about equally divided between crystallography, 

 as it is being developed by Doctor Williams, and that wonderful carbon chem- 

 istry, as the master hand of Professor Remsen unfolds it. The former is 

 almost purely deductive. . . . The relations that come out when the subject 

 is treated logically are beautiful, if they are mathematical. . . . Professor 

 Remsen, on the other hand, is in his field an apostle of induction. He insists 

 that every chemical formula which has any value is the result — the focus — of 

 direct lines of experiment and observation, synthetic and analytic. ... To 

 be sure, this rules out a good many formulas, but chemistry can easily spare 

 them." 



In May he is at work, under Doctor Morse's directiou, on the best 

 method of the purification of mercury. 



"In the course of the work I came across some very interesting facts, and 

 they suggested a series of experiments, which promise to be very valuable in 

 determining the ([uestion of the composition or, rather, methods of combina- 

 tion of the metals in amalgams. No woi'k has ever been done on the vapor 

 tejisions of amalgams and metals in vacuo. The pushing out into unbeaten 

 paths is excee<lingly fascinating." 



In his second year at Johns Hopkins, Hayes was awarded a scholarship 

 in chemistry on the basis of a competitive examination, an honor which 



