638 MEMORIAL OF DR. JOSEPH M. TONER. 



Lad that strong tendency to build up theories which is common to 

 fertile minds, and had to abandon many which experience and observa- 

 tion failed to substantiate. Perhaps the leading characteristic of his 

 pursuit of scientific subjects was assiduity rather than originality. He 

 pursued every subject which interested him, especially in later years, 

 with an energy which sought out all the means of elucidation within 

 his reach, and he was not satisfied until he had seen and weighed what- 

 ever there might be in books and periodicals upon the topic in hand. 



We may view him next as a writer, and his contributions to the press 

 were neither few nor small. His first little book, " Maternal Instinct," 

 printed in 1864, at Baltimore, was a serious discussion of the functions 

 and the duties of motherhood, and evinced his earnest bent toward 

 practical views of life. His second book, a " Dictionary of Elevations 

 and Climatic Register of the United States,'' published at Washington 

 in 1874, was more important. It was the first attempt, so far as known, 

 to put before the public in book form and in alphabetical order the 

 heights above sea level of all cities, towns, and mountains which could 

 be ascertained. These were scattered through very numerous sources 

 of information, in periodicals, Government reports, etc., and to gather 

 them together involved protracted and patient labor, for which Dr. 

 Toner's assiduous zeal in pursuit of a cherished object well qualified 

 him. The book, as published, is open to the drawback that the reader 

 has to consult two alphabets instead of one, and this was caused by the 

 material growing upon him after he had printed off a large j>ortion of 

 the work, which forms the first alphabet. This may be regarded as an 

 object lesson to authors and compilers not to be too hasty in going to 

 press, observing the Horatian rule of a nine years' incubation rather 

 than to bring out an immature production, ever mindful of the Roman 

 maxim, " Litera scripta manet." Still, it is most creditable to the subject 

 of our notice to have been the pioneer in a field of scientific research 

 which has had many more recent publications, under the auspices of 

 various bureaus of the Government connected with military, geological, 

 and geodetic surveys. 



In the field of medical and hygienic literature Dr. Toner published, 

 in 1874, " Contributions to the Annals of Medical Progress and Medical 

 Education in the United States," which was brought out by the 

 Bureau of Education. Shortly after appeared his "Address before the 

 Rocky Mountain Medical Association," afterwards expanded into a vol- 

 ume (Washington, 1877), and abounding in historical and biographical 

 material concerning early American physicians and surgeons. He very 

 early made it a special object to collect from the most widely scattered 

 sources all the information existing relating to the men of his profession 

 during the period of the American Revolution. It was this pursuit, 

 occupying several years' labor, which first gave him that strong bent 

 toward historical, and especially biographical, investigations, which 

 finally absorbed nearly all of his time and energies. To gather this 



