The subdivision of the land into so many islands and keys, the absence of mountains, the showery characteristic of the rainfall, the porosity of the rock, and the great heat reflected from the white coral, are the chief causes for the want of running water.
During the rainy season the "abundance of water" collects in the low places, making ponds and lagoons, that afterward are soaked up by the rock and evaporated by the sun.
Turk and Watling have lagoons of a more permanent condition, because they are maintained from the ocean by permeation.

The lagoon which Columbus found at Guanahani had certainly undrinkable water, or he would have gotten some for his vessels, instead of putting it off until he reached the third island.
There is nothing in the journal to indicate that the lagoon at Guanahani was aught but the flooding of the low grounds by excessive rains; and even if it was one communicating with the ocean, its absence now may be referred to the effect of those agencies which are working incessantly to reshape the soft structure of the Bahamas.
Samana has a range of hills on the southwest side about one hundred feet high, and on the northeast another, lower.

Between them, and also along the north shore, the land is low, and during the season of rains there is a row of ponds parallel to the shore.

On the south side a conspicuous white bluff looks to the southward and eastward.
The two keys, lying respectively half a mile and three miles east of the island, and possibly the outer breaker, which is four miles, all might have been connected with each other, and with the island, four hundred years ago.

In that event the most convenient place for Columbus to anchor in the strong northeast trade-wind, was where I have put an anchor on the sub-sketch of Samana.
(In a subsequent passage Admiral Fox says:--) There is a common belief that the first landing place is settled by one or another of the authors cited here.