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In covering the activity of the German Society, the work done in the Committees shoułd also be mention-ed; the committee intend to give direct practical help in many ąuestions of Geotechniąue.

The Society of the German Pemocratic Republic is a rather young member of the International Society.

In September 1976, they held their 2nd International Symposium, on the bearing capacity of rigid cast-in-place piles. There were two introductory lectures on the subject followed by a lively discussion. The group worked intensively on new official standards; the members are active at solving the foundation problems of dwellings /several tens of thousands/ and of industrial projects. The reconstruction of old cities with unfavourable soil conditions reąuires much ingenuity. National meetings on local problems were held in 1975 and 1977 in Dresden.

In Greece, the Hellenie Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering organized, in the past four years, thirteen lectures on various subjects, with guest speakers. The text of the lectures was printed in two volumes of the Journal of the Society.

The Greek report also lists 23 research papers authored by the members of the group. The first Soil Mechanics textbook has also been published.

The number of the active members has doubled in the last four years.

The Hungarian National Society continued its activity under the auspices of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences /Committee for Soil and Rock Mechanics/.

They jointly organized the Fifth Budapest Conference, with international participation. The three main topics were 1. Physical properties of soils;

2.    Design and construction of deep foundations, and

3.    Stability of earthworks and deep excavations. The volume of the Proceedings contains 49 papers, from

17 countries; the twenty Hungarian papers reflected well the timely problems of this area. The subjects were keenly discussed in the respective sessions.

The regular sessions of the National Society have usually an informative character, while lectures and discussions are held in other gatherings. The main problems are furnished by the construction of the Budapest Subway, yearly a length of 1 to 1,5 km is completed. Many special methods have been invented and successfully applied. It deserves special mention that a collection of pile loading tests has been compiled and yearly augmented and evaluated.

The youngest member of the International Society in Europę, Ireland reports on papers and discussions on a pumped storage project, on the foundation of a bridge and on the aspects of Civil Engineering in the peat industry.

Romania organized, after the 8th International Conference, a meeting to gather information on the advancements reached in Moscow. Several outstanding guest speakers held lectures in Bucharest. Upon the invitation of the Romanian Government, a Seminar on construction in seismic regions and regions having difficult ground conditions was held, under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission. On three working sessions, design, construction and control of structures to be erected in such areas and problems of international cooperation were discussed. In September 1975, the Third Romanian National Conference was held on three themes:    determination of soil

properties, soil-structure interaction, and foundation methods and technology. 87 papers have been published in the Proceedings.

The report of the Swedish Geotechnical Society is traditionally rich and comprehensive. I mention first that the Society had its Silver Jubilee in 1975.

In Sweden, an extensive committee activity is going on. The Penetration Research Committee was in charge of the first European Symposium on Penetration Testing /ESOPT/ which gave a real impetus to the further development of penetration. Delegates from 32 countries were present, they discussed 26 national state-of-the-art reports.

The papers documented national standards and codes of practice from about 20 countries. Thus, the Proceedings give an almost complete summary of existing national penetration methods in different parts of the world. The second volume reports on the various activities during the Symposium, the third includes 65 papers submitted by specialists, the papers cover the entire area of penetration testing and interpreta-tion. There was a splendid exhibition and field demonstration of eąuipment. The materiał will certainly help our Committee toward international standardization. In Sweden, studies of the bearing capacity of friction piles as function of the results of penetration testing have been madę. The Swedish activity on development and standardization of penetration methods has continued after ESOPT; they worked out a proposal for European standards of weight sounding and dynamie testing, respectively.

The Laboratory Committee intends to standardize Swedish laboratory methods and eąuipment. Of the total 10 parts, six have been published so far /soil structure, grain size distribution, compaction, consistency limits, volume and weight ratios, permeability and capillarity/. The individual brochures have an excellent appearance and a fine typography.

A special committee of the Society worked out a Geotechnical Dictionary, issued in 1975.

An international symposium on Frost Action in Soils was held in 1977, organized by the University of Lulea, with three topics:    water transport, ice

formation in soils, and technical aspects of frost action.

It has to be mentioned that an extensive research and development work is going on in Sweden in the field of driven piles, by the Pile Research Commission of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Science.

The Swiss Society /Societe Suisse de Mćcaniąue des Sols et des Roches/ organized five national conferences, on the following topics:

1/ geotechnical problems with large projects in Wallis (1975); 2/ bracing of open cuts and pits, deep retain-ing structures; 3/ geotechnical problems in the area of Schaffhausen; 4/ actual calculation methods in foundation engineering; 5/ engineering geology.

The number of participants was between 130 and 360.

The contributions have been published by the Society (Publications 90 to 94). The list of other publications contains, sińce 1973, approx. 10 titles.

In Turkey, Terzaghi Memoriał lectures were held in 1973, immediately after the 8th International Conference. The meeting was organized by the Department of Civil Engineering of Bogaziói University, Istanbul, in memory of the late Professor Terzaghi

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