Randy Roering, age 9, of St. Paul, Minnesota, for his question:

Are the White Sands of New Mexico really white?

Imagine a special winter's morning. Early yesterday there was a new fall of fluffy white snow and later in the afternoon a warmish breeze melted a little, just a little on the top. Nobody had time to mess it up and no dust had time to dirty the snowy whiteness. Then, during the night, Jack Frost came around and froze the soft melted snow and covered the earth with sparkling crystals of glassy clear ice. That picture is very much like the White Sands of New Mexico. Of course, the glittering specks sparkle only when the sun shines. But these white sands happen to be in a desert region    where the clear sky is almost always a blend of pale and deep heavenly blues.

Actually the famous white sands are not made of beach type sand at all. The gritty grains of golden beach sand are made mostly of minerals called silicas. The White Sands of New Mexico are made from grains of a softer mineral called gypsum. The desert winds blow the grains around and pile them in humps and hills and little ripples. The huge region stretches far and wide and in 1933, the United States claimed more than 146,000 acres of it to make a National Monument, a sort of public place that must be kept unspoiled.