Living beings have been elaborated with the exception of their initial germ or seed from what they have eaten, drank, breathed or absorbed.

If this is the case with them now individually, of course, it has been so with each race from the start, and Man, for instance, if progressively developed, must have been elaborated, with the exception of his beginning as a simple cell or whatever it was, from what his ancestors and himself have eaten drank breathed or absorbed.

I see no way of avoiding this conclusion; and admitting it, it seems also equally clear to me that the constantly increasing variety and higher order of his food was not only necessary to him in his advancing state, but also contributed very materially, and was in fact the main cause of his advancement, or perhaps I should rather say of the variations which “Natural Selection” the flood & other agencies guided.

If plant life began in southern South America and developed into sea animals in southern South America as I have elsewhere supposed,¹ it explains why, or affords a reason why, the drainage of the De La Plata should seek the southern ocean rather than the North Atlantic.

I don’t recollect whether I have ever called your attention to the fact, important I think with reference to my views, and entirely peculiar to Europe & Asia Minor which follows.

The desert of Sahara affords the hottest of air, with the wind in the right directions, for taking up the greatest quantity of moisture & volatile particles from the Mediteranean Sea and also the Red Sea to be distributed over Asia Minor and Europe. I am told that there is a current of several miles an hour running into & up the Red Sea constantly to supply the enormous evaporation.

The Arabian Desert allows the winds from the Indian Ocean to carry its moisture & volatile particles to Asia Minor without losing any on the way.

I imagine that very hot air would not only take up more moisture & more in quantity of volatile particles, but would also take up denser & less volatile particles than cooler air would.

In regard to the mating of Africa and South America note the valley of the Amazon bounded on the west by the Andes, and the the desert of Sahara bounded on the east by the Nile.

Big Brazil with a Monarch from southern Europe mates little Liberia with a President from the southern United States²   Savage Patagonia mates the comparatively civilized vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. The colony of Algeria may perhaps be considered as mating the colonies of Guiana in S.A.

The republican remainder of S.A. mates in many respect the Despotic or Patriarchical remainder of Africa.

This mating of Governments is suggestive to me of a more perfect mating of them hereafter.

Brunswick Maine

January 8, 1871

Mr Charles Darwin

Dear Sir

Please excuse the above suggestions supplementary to what I have sent you before.³

Yours very respectfully | Alex^r F. Boardman

P.S. Have you read W B Walkers “Cyclical deluges”?⁴ It seems to me that the increased warmth in the Southern Hemisphere would enable the air to hold additional moisture enough to counteract the loss of attraction sustained by the melting of the ice around the South pole. If so I don’t see but his “key” is gone. A.F.B