Copper, potash, and uranium are not the only mining operations of New Mexico. Perlite is recovered from deposits near No Agua in Taos County and just north of Grants. Two new gypsum plants are now operating northeast of Albuquerque, and a cement plant is located east of that city. High-grade copper veins are worked south of Lordsburg. Coal mining is being reactivated, with producing mines near Gallup, Fruitland, and Raton. A new molybdenum mine is under development east of Questa. New Mexico’s mineral industry is on a broad and firm base. Mines and derricks are ever-present aspects of New Mexico’s landscapes; they are seen by every citizen of the state and every tourist as he travels across the plains, valleys, and mountains. The derricks and the mine openings are merely surface features through which the vast wealth of the underground is exploited, but they are a monetarily important part of New Mexico’s scenery, rocks, and history. Enchanting Landscapes _by_ Frank E. Kottlowski The visitor and the native may be well acquainted with the more famous scenic places in New Mexico. Most of these are National or State Parks or Monuments—glistening dunes of White Sands, sandstone cliffs of El Morro, canyons eroded in volcanic rocks of Bandelier, the recent volcano of Capulin Mountain, multicolored sinkholes at Bottomless Lakes, grotesque carvings of volcanic rocks at City of Rocks, and the black tongues of cooled lava in the Valley of Fires State Park near Carrizozo. Many of the lesser-known spectacular scenic areas are off the beaten path, far from the seventy-mile-an-hour Interstate highways. Even a brief description of all would fill a thick book. But near the most traveled routes are numerous enchanting landscapes. The traveler from the midwest or east, driving U.S. Highway 66 (Interstate 40) breaks over the edge of the “caprock” a few miles east of the New Mexico—Texas line. Atop the caprock is Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains, a level surface stretching along the southeast edge of New Mexico eastward into Texas. As seen south of Tucumcari near Ragland, east of Fort Sumner near Taiban, or east of Roswell near Kenna and Caprock, the bluffs of the Llano Estacado are topped by caprock, a cliff of white caliche-limestone as much as forty feet thick in places. Below, on gentle to steep slopes reaching northward toward Tucumcari or westward toward Fort Sumner and Roswell, are the varicolored red, purple, green, and gray shales and sandstones of Triassic age. Red Lake near Taiban on U.S. Highway 60-84 lies in the red muds of these Triassic rocks.