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Unusually shaped piece of lava that was collected by the famous commander while heading the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838 to 1842) which traversed 80,000 miles around the globe and was the first official U.S. scientific exploring expedition by sea. Commander Wilkes (who Melville modeled Captain Ahab after in Moby Dick) took over 500 of his men to the top of Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii in December 1840 (there are still remnants of his camp up there today) to make a scientific study of this massive volcano. This specimen has a handwritten label in Wilkes' handwriting that says "GREAT VOLCANO MANUA LOA SANDWICH ISLANDS LAVA" and then on reverse "MANUA LOA SANDWICH ISLAND LAVA" - a great piece of Hawaiian and Pacific history. The carte-de-visite is an engraving. The steel-engraved portrait is after a painting by Alonzo Chappel, out of quarto-size book, with tissue guard attached.