Subscriber, Boston, Mass., writes:

"Is there any way of constructing a cellar which shall be reasonably water-tight? After repeated sad experiences, I have given up any hope for one which shall be absolutely damp-proof; but it does seem as though there could be some way devised for keeping out water. My house is on a hilltop, yet the cellar is flooded regularly every spring. If you can suggest any remedy, even a partial one, you will greatly oblige."

EQUALIZING THE FLOW IN A DOMESTIC WATER SERVICE.

[Subscriber's trouble is a very old one, to which hilltop houses are nearly as liable as those in a valley. A very good plan is to dig the cellar 18 inches deeper than required for finished height, filling in with coarse, broken stone, well rammed down to prevent settling. The outside walls should be started over a similar filling, laid in a trench a little deeper than the bottom of the cellar excavation. Then over the broken stone in the cellar is laid a course of concrete 3 or 4 inches thick, the walls being laid up in cement mortar. In most localities the water will never rise higher than the stone filling, but in a clay soil, if full of seams, the cellar bottom had better be sloped slightly towards a sump at the center, or other convenient place, which should be connected with a tile drain carried far enough away from the building to discharge properly below the level of the cellar bottom, but of course not connected with any sewer or cesspool. It is possible to make tight a cellar bottom which is below tide water, but the process is usually too expensive to be considered in connection with ordinary dwellings. There are parties in New York who make a business of constructing such water-proof cellars.]