Dear Sir

I don’t know but I weary you with my letters.¹ If so, of course, you have only to throw them in the fire, and need not answer them. I don’t know where I may wander before I close but I commence with calling your attention to one of the points of a subject in which you certainly take an interest ie “Natural Selection”.

I don’t recollect that you have ever directed attention to what, I think, is a fact, that “Natural Selection” is operative in developement not only by preserving those best adapted to the conditions encountered but also by removing those less adapted to those conditions to other and more favorable ones. Variations upward in the scale, will of course often render the subject of them less adapted to the surrounding conditions and while the earth was scantily covered with men or animals emigration was usually open to those less adapted to the place where they were; and of course many of those emigrating found more favorable conditions of existence or of developement. It was no advantage, I take it, in the direction of developement for men or animals to be relieved of stimulants to exertion.

Emigration among men and I presume among animals also takes place with those who are discontented from any cause with their location. Adventurers, in the main, settled the new world. But the “Pilgrim Fathers”, as we call them, would have been glad to have remained in England or on the continent if the surrounding conditions had not been ill adapted to them. Imperfect as they certainly were and illy adapted to their surroundings, they had many very noble traits in advance of their times. “Natural Selection” instead of eliminating them sent them to leaven the new world. The Huguenots the cream of France, unwilling emigrants, mixed with German and English and other blood, on new soil, and in a different air, have probably raised the standard of mind of the world more than they would remaining in France unpersecuted and unthinned.

Natural Selection sends the Irish too little crossed with other blood and too long exposed to an excessive gulf stream air and poorly adapted to their surroundings in Ireland to this country, where in time and especially if mixed with other blood they make valuable citizens. Assuming that mankind originated in Asia Minor or vicinity, “Natural Selection” sent those who loved a warm climate and easy life to the “flesh pots of Egypt” while an opposite class would go to Greece &c thus increasing and perpetuating the initial difference.

In your work “The descent of man” you quote as follows “that residence in the Western states during the years of growth tends to produce increase of stature.”

And then you say that Mr B A Gould arrived at the conclusion that the influences which thus act on stature “did not relate to climate the elevation of the land soil’ &c.² It is perfectly notorious here that Western people are much taller and heavier than eastern people and also that the soil in the west is much deeper and richer and more fruitful. It is also well established I think that “fat pastures” in several generations or even sooner will materially increase the size of small cattle. In view of these things it is a mystery to me how Mr Gould could arrive at the conclusion that the climate & soil had nothing to do with this increase. I don’t say that it is proved that the air & soil are the cause but I do say that the contrary is not proved and untill I hear of some more probable cause I shall consider the soil and air as the main causes. In this case it cannot be the abundance or need of the comforts of life or an excess of food eaten which makes the difference as New Englanders eat too much rather than too little.

New Englanders also get their grain and much of their beef from the west, but no increase of stature has occurred since they did so, that I am aware of.

The climate of the west is much drier and consequently more of what moisture is in the air must come from its excessively rich soil and be laden with its proportions, but this may or may not be an element in the case.

Mr Maury in his “Physical Geography of the Sea” thinks that the valley of the Mississippi is watered by rains which come from the sea on the west coast of South America.³

The south east trade winds there carry the evaporation to the equatorial calm belt where they rise and are carried over the North East trade winds and over the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi valley. This if true (and he says that the rain winds in that valley are the south west winds, and reasons plausibly otherwise,) adds another factor to the contents of the gulf stream. At any rate their rain comes from the west and not from the east or Atlantic, and though taller and larger they are not so intellectual as Eastern people. This is in accordance with the views which I advocate in regard to the gulf stream air.⁴

In New England too as in old England, as we are obliged to import so much of our food, it comes from a much wider range; and higher organisation, I imagine, results very much at least from higher combination.

I have another speculation which may seem to you too bold. It does to me sometimes.

I understand Astronomers to suppose that the moon from being smaller and composed of lighter materials has run its course faster than the earth and has now cooled off & has now no appreciable atmosphere &c.

As I understand them the earth will in time reach the same point and be uninhabitable to such beings as now live on it. But the earth long ago was utterly uninhabitable by man and yet our ancestors were here, why in the distant future when the earth is uninhabitable by such as us, may it not be peopled by our altered decendants. “Is Gods hand shortened that he cannot save?”⁵ Why may not mankind grow more & more etherial untill finally divested of earthly clogs they enter upon another and a higher state of existence? To the mind familiar with the distance which mankind has already advanced does such a future progress seem too great? The passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites & other similar things are nowhere. We have been led through the oceans for thousands of years, and I am not sure that our emergence from the sea to the air is not as great a feat as our emergence, from air which gradually grew rarer & rarer, to the realms of space would be.

But perhaps I have got up into the clouds too much. But how could the Spaniards when they first saw the new world help speculating?

The truth is, in my opinion, we don’t begin (scarcely) to see where the great fact of evolution is going to carry us.

It will make a great scattering among the dry bones especially of the interpretations of the Bible, but I have great faith that the true word of God standeth sure.

Yours respty and gratefully | Alex F. Boardman