Richmond in Virginia. Richmond, Virginia, _March 2, 1843._ I arrived at this place last night from Washington, where I had observed little worth describing. The statue of our first President, by Greenough, was, of course, one of the things which I took an early opportunity of looking at, and although the bad light in which it is placed prevents the spectator from properly appreciating the features, I could not help seeing with satisfaction, that no position, however unfavorable, could impair the majesty of that noble work, or, at all events, destroy its grand general effect. The House of Representatives I had not seen since 1832, and I perceived that the proceedings were conducted with less apparent decorum than formerly, and that the members no longer sat with their hats on. Whether they had come to the conclusion that it was well to sit uncovered, in order to make up, by this token of mutual respect, for the too frequent want of decorum in their proceedings, or whether the change has been made because it so often happens that all the members are talking together, the rule being that the person speaking must be bareheaded, or whether, finally, it was found, during the late long summer sessions, that a hat made the wearer really uncomfortable, are questions which I asked on the spot, but to which I got no satisfactory answer. I visited the Senate Chamber, and saw a member of that dignified body, as somebody calls it, in preparing to make a speech, blow his nose with his thumb and finger without the intervention of a pocket-handkerchief. The speech, after this graceful preliminary, did not, I confess, disappoint me. Whoever goes to Washington should by all means see the Museum at the Patent Office, enriched by the collections lately brought back by the expedition sent out to explore the Pacific. I was surprised at the extent and variety of these collections. Dresses, weapons, and domestic implements of savage nations, in such abundance as to leave, one would almost think, their little tribes disfurnished; birds of strange shape and plumage; fishes of remote waters; whole groves of different kinds of coral; sea-shells of rare form and singular beauty from the most distant shores; mummies from the caves of Peru; curious minerals and plants: whoever is interested by such objects as these should give the museum a more leisurely examination than I had time to do. The persons engaged in arranging and putting up these collections were still at their task when I was at Washington, and I learned that what I saw was by no means the whole.