34  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
Aside  from  the  specimens  from  the  Leedstown  cache,  the  collec- 
tions of  the  National  Museum  contain  only  one  series  of  the  trans- 
parent blue  glass  beads  with  longitudinal  stripes  of  fine  threads 
of  opaque  white  glass  paralleling  the  perforation.  These  were  re- 
covered from  an  ancient  Indian  burial  on  Santa  Rosa  Island,  Santa 
Barbara  County,  Calif.,  by  Stephen  J.  Bowers  in  1876  (U.S.N.M. 
no.  20236).  The  islands  were  discovered  by  the  Spaniards  under 
Cabrillo  in  1542  and  were  visited  frequently  thereafter  by  ships  under 
the  same  flag.  Although  the  beads  from  the  bank  of  the  Rappahan- 
nock are  corroded,  with  their  surfaces  roughened,  those  from  Cali- 
fornia appear  as  fresh  and  smooth,  as  when  placed  in  the  graves. 
This  contrast  in  condition  of  the  two  groups  may  be  attributed  to  the 
difference  in  the  amount  of  moisture,  the  variation  of  temperature, 
and  the  composition  of  the  earth  by  which  they  were  surrounded. 
All  are  thought  to  be  of  the  same  age  and  to  have  come  from  the  same 
source— some  glasshouse  in  Spain. 
Cut  rock  crystal  beads,  similar  to  those  recovered  from  the  Leeds- 
town  cache,  have  been  discovered  on  the  west  coast  of  Florida,  but 
are  not  known  from  any  other  part  of  the  United  States.  They  have 
been  found  in  mounds  and  burials  within  a  limited  area  extending 
southward  from  the  north  shore  of  Tampa  Bay  to  the  vicinity  of  Key 
Marco,  a  distance  of  about  175  miles.  Other  forms  of  beads  and 
pendants,  likewise  made  of  rock  crystal,  have  been  discovered  in 
Florida  associated  with  the  type  occurring  at  Leedstown,  but  only 
the  latter  will  now  be  considered. 
The  specimens  mentioned  as  having  come  from  Pinellas  and  Hills- 
borough Counties  were  collected  by  S.  T.  Walker  in  1879.^*  Many 
others  were  found  during  the  progress  of  recent  archeological  ex- 
plorations under  the  direction  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology, 
supervised  by  M.  W.  Stirling.  They  were  encountered  in  several 
localities,  within  the  bounds  previously  designated,  and  all  came  from 
burials  thought  to  have  belonged  to  the  years  following  soon  after 
the  first  contact  of  Spaniards  and  Indians  about  the  last  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Whether  they  had  been  traded  or  given  to  the 
Indians,  or  had  been  recovered  by  the  natives  from  a  Spanish  wreck 
on  the  Gulf  coast,  may  never  be  known;  however,  they  were  un- 
doubtedly brought  to  America  in  a  Spanish  ship. 
The  crystal  beads  from  the  cache  on  the  Rappahannock  and  those 
from  the  west  coast  of  Florida  are  identical  in  form  and  size.    They 
^^  Walker,    S.    T.,    Preliminary    explorations    among    the    Indian    mounds    in 
southern  Florida.    In  Ann.  Rep.  Smithsonian  Inst,  for  1879,  Washington,  1880. 
