The Colony House stood directly opposite to the drawbridge, being placed there for the purposes of defence, as well as to have access to the spring.  A want of water was rather an evil on the Reef; not that the sands did not furnish an ample supply, and that of the most delicious quality, but it had to be carried to inconvenient distances.  In general, water was found in sufficient quantities and in suitable places, among the group; but, at the Reef, there was certainly this difficulty to contend with.  As the governor caused his brother, the surveyor-general, to lay out a town on the Reef, it was early deemed necessary to make some provision against this evil.  A suitable place was selected, and a cistern was blown out of the rock, into which all the water that fell on the roof of Colony House was led.  This reservoir, when full, contained many thousand gallons; and when once full, it was found that the rains were sufficient to prevent its being very easily emptied.

But the greatest improvement that was made on the Reef, after all, was in the way of soil.  As for the crater, that, by this time, was a mass of verdure, among which a thousand trees were not only growing, but flourishing.  This was as true of its plain, as of its mounds; and of its mounds, as of its plain.  But the crater was composed of materials very different from the base of the Reef.  The former was of tufa, so far as it was rock at all; while the latter was, in the main, pure lava.  Nevertheless, something like a soil began to form even on the Reef, purely by the accessions caused though its use by man.  Great attention was paid to collecting everything that could contribute to the formation of earth, in piles; and these piles were regularly removed to such cavities, or inequalities in the surface of the rock, as would be most likely to retain their materials when spread.  In this way many green patches had been formed, and, in a good many instances, trees had been set out, in spots where it was believed they could find sufficient nourishment.  But, no sooner had the governor decided to build on the Reef, and to make his capital there, than he set about embellishing the place systematically.  Whenever a suitable place could be found, in what was intended for Colony House grounds, a space of some ten acres in the rear of the building, he put in the drill, and blew out rock.  The fragments of stone were used about the building; and the place soon presented a ragged, broken surface, of which one might well despair of making anything.  By perseverance, however, and still more by skill and judgment, the whole area was lowered more than a foot, and in many places, where nature assisted the work, it was lowered several feet.  It was a disputed question, indeed, whether stone for the building could not be obtained here, by blasting, cheaper and easier, than by transporting it from Rancocus Island.  Enough was procured in this way not only to construct the building, but to enclose the grounds