These proceedings of a conference organized by the Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering
Dynamics, which is the British National Section of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering,
bring together 19 papers from England, 6 from the United States, 3 from the USSR, and single
contributions from Australia, South Africa, and India. About half of the papers are of direct interest to
earthquake engineers; of the others, 6 involve mainly ocean waves and their effects on coastal structures,
5 treat of soil and structural dynamics problems of general interest, 2 are concerned with design for wind
loads, and the remaining involve background material of a theoretical or mathematical nature, including
an introductory paper on the historical background of the applied mathematics of waves by M. J. Lighthill
