AbstractWe continue our study of the consolidation of inhomogeneous clay soils with an analysis of the response of a soil mass, whose shear modulus increases linearly with depth, to axially symmetric pressure on its surface. This extends the work reported in Part I on the corresponding one‐dimensional problem of a clay column, and generalizes researches of Gibson and coworkers on the elastic model of the soil (i.e., the initial response).Because of great mathematical complexity when Poisson's ratio is allowed to assume arbitrary values, we have confined ourselves (as did Gibson in several of his papers) to variations of the modulus from a zero surface value, this being in reasonable accord with published test results on London clay. The deflection of points within this region, the deflection relative to the central one (that is, the shape of the deformed loading area), as well as the absolute deflection of surface points exterior to the loa