the colorado desert the most famous of waste places in america the colorado desert Is popularly regarded as art an empire of hopeless sterility the silence of which will never be broken by the voices of men but the great desert Is the life work of the colorado river the scientific men of the university of arizona ha have lve analyzed these waters and found that the actual commercial value of the fertilizing matter which would be deposited upon each aero acre by irrigation amounts in the course of a year to what then Is the potential value of the laud land which this river has created in centuries the products of the region include oranges and the dates of commerce the place is more like byrla than any other part of the united states and the daring imaginations may readily conceive that here a new damascus will art arise more beautiful than that of old with the occupation of the colorado giesert and of the great peninsula al su ia which adjoins it a powerful impulse will be given to agriculture mining and a nd commerce ta in a vast region now little peopled one of the inevitable consequences will be the rlue of san diego to the proportions of a large city probably the largest in the southern part of the coast our great pacific cornmon commonwealth mon wealth by william E smythe in the december century