Opening Address

This conference comes at a time when the need for greater knowledge is becoming of paramount importance—knowledge of the natural conditions in which these structures have to be built, operated and maintained, and knowledge of the natural forces with which they have to contend, and of the structural designs which will meet the very exacting requirements which these necessitate; and all this is to enable the massive oil and gas resources which have been and are being dis covered beneath the continental shelf of northwest Europe to be brought into service for, in the terms of our old Charter, the use and convenience of man.