XIV BULLETIN NO. 23, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



bles. He was also present, by special invitatiou, at the meeting- of 

 twenty-five lords who met to discuss the subject of the charter of the 

 Birmingham and London Eailroad, where he heard the celebrated bar- 

 rister, Mr. Follet, plead for the charter of the railroad, which was re- 

 fused as a result of their report.* 



Mr. Lea was frequently at the British Museum, always receiving a 

 warm welcome from Dr. Gray and the other ofBcials. He presented 

 to the museum many rare specimens. 



At a meeting of the Eoyal Society at Somerset House, at which Mr. 

 Lea was present. Dr. Buckland presided. A paper was read on the 

 first discoveries of the spots in the sun. After the session most of the 

 members retired to the tea room. Mr. Lea was there introduced to Dr. 

 Bostock, the author of " Physiology," &c., and a number of other dis- 

 tinguished members. 



The next day he called upon Mr. Claxton, the American mechanist 

 who made the instruments by which Faraday showed the spark made 

 by the magnet, which was creating great interest at that time in Lon- 

 don. During the season the Duke of Sussex, president of the Eoyal 

 Society, was giving soirees at Kensington Palace, to which Mr. Lea was 

 invited and where he met many of the elite of science of that city. Mr. 

 Murchison, president of the Geological Society, also gave soirees every 

 other week, and at these gatherings Mr. Lea had the pleasure of meet- 

 ing with Sedgwick, Buckland, Broderip, Babbage, Lyell, De la Beche, 

 Mrs. Somerville, and others. 



At the request of Dr. Gray he went over the collection of Unionidce, 

 in the British Museum, arranged and named them correctly, adding- 

 some new species from the United States. 



Mr. Lea was invited to dine with the club of the Eoyal Society, Mr. 

 Marsden presiding. Here he met with Mr. Daniels, the chemist. Dr. 

 Eoget, Mr. Bailey, the astronomer, and Mr. Children, secretary of the 

 society. 



Subsequently he visited Paris, where he had numerous correspond- 

 ents. J. Fenimore Cooper had written to him that Paris was nearly 

 free from the cholera, and that it was safe to visit it. On his arrival 

 there with his family shortly after, he found that two hundred and 

 twenty-five persons were daily carried off with this frightful pestilence. 

 Both Mr. Cooper and Mr. Wells, the American banker, advised him to 

 remain, which he did, and in a few days it entirely disappeared. Mr. 

 Wells and Mr. Cooper had established a cholera hospital, where during 

 the epidemic eight hundred patients had been received. Mr. Lea and 

 his family, consisting of himself, wife, and his two sons, escaped with a 

 slight attack of what was called the " cholerine." 



Mr. Cooper and Mr. Lea had planned with their families to go up the 

 Ehine and be in Switzerland together, but as they could not agree upon 



* The expense for this application to Parliament was £60,000. The following year 

 they obtained the charter. 



