The man on this old Hawaiian stamp is Lorrin Andrews Thurston (1858–1931).
This is him again:
He was born in Hawaii, the son of an American missionary. At the turn of the century he was a lawyer and the publisher of the Honolulu Pacific Commercial Advertiser. He was keen on the idea that the USA should take over the government of Hawaii. He didn't think the Hawaiians were making a very good job of it. They probably weren't opening enough branches of MacDonalds. So in 1893 he helped lead a revolution that overthrew Queen Liliuokalani....
This is her.
Mr. Thurston drafted the constitution for the provisional Hawaiian government, put himself on the stamps, and headed the commission to Washington that negotiated for annexation.
But he was also interested in preserving the remarkable geography of Hawaii. Most of the big island of Hawaii, for instance, is made up of a huge volcano called Mauna Loa.
Its the biggest volcano in the world.
Thurston campaigned for ten years to have the area on the Big Island with the active volcanos made into a national park...
It became the USA's 13th national park in 1916.
This is a picture of the inside of a lava tube...
Lava tubes are a common feature of the volcanic landscape in Hawaii. When a lava-flow travels down the side of a mountain the surface of it cools but the lava keeps on flowing underground through a self-made tube of volcanic rock. The lava travels for longer than it would have done because the tube's roof insulates the molten lava, keeping it fluid for longer. When the eruption stops, lava drains out of the tube leaving a long, thin cave.
The lava tube in these pictures was discovered by this Lorrin Andrews Thurston (1858–1931) we've been talking about. This is one of the entrances to it today...
As you can see, its surrounded by rainforest.
The Thurston Lava Tube isn't very old as caves go, about 400 years. Its 600 feet long and up to 13 feet high. Its also known by its Hawaiian name, Nahuku, which refers to the small protuberances on the walls of the tube.
There's an album title for us: "Small Protuberances". Maybe the third album.