These, then, are some of the things to look for in this region of plains and mountains. Picture buffalo by the tens of thousands pushing up the Canadian River, or long lines of wagons winding their way along the Santa Fe Trail carrying goods and people into new lands, or the Blue and the Gray locked in deadly combat far from the thunder of the main Civil War battles. The mosaic here is sharp and vividly different. Northwest New Mexico Northwest New Mexico is typified as ancient Indian country. While seemingly a harsh land, it is only this to the uninitiated, to those who lock their minds to beauties of history and lands unlike their own. The Indian found this country good and productive. Some of the finest ruins of Indian antiquity are in this region—Chaco Canyon and Aztec, both National Monuments, and hundreds more that remain unnamed. The Indians of the Four Corners area (named thus because New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona meet here, the only place in the United States where the lines of four states intersect) created levels of culture unsurpassed in what is the continental United States; only the Indians of Mexico and Peru claim a higher culture. This is a land whose ancient people reached their great peak at the same time as the later Romans, as Charlemagne in ancient Frankish Europe, and as Mohammed and his successors in the Middle East. But ancient Indians hold no monopoly on this vast region. Today many of the Indians of New Mexico still find homes here. The Navajo Reservation lies between Gallup and the Colorado line. Part of the Ute Reservation lies along the northern edge of New Mexico, and the Jicarilla Reservation is in the eastern part of this region. Many of the pueblo people are found between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. At Gallup each year, the famed Indian Ceremonials bring together peoples from many of the tribes in the United States. This region is also renowned as an oil and natural gas producer and is one of the booming areas in New Mexico. But this is only one aspect of the mineral riches of the northwest; the mines near Grants, between Albuquerque and Gallup, produce tremendous quantities of uranium ores. The atomic energy capability of the United States begins at Grants. And near Gallup and Fruitland are huge open-pit coal mines. The northwest is drained by the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, and is therefore a part of the Pacific watershed. The Navajo Dam project, just east of Farmington, is a part of this drainage pattern. Thus the region is characterized by Indians old and new, ancient things buried deep beneath the earth, and great beauty in pastel colors and subtle contrasts—the mosaic of the land. East-Central New Mexico