Hyperbolic cooling towers, Fig. 1, must frequently be designed for seismic effects. This computation should be performed using rational methods of dynamic analysis; however, for preliminary design, quasistatic methods are quite useful. A recent paper (1) has pointed out the considerable difference in the meridional stresses obtained from using a base shear distribution proportional to just the mass of the shell (M distribution) as against that obtained by using a distribution proportional to both the mass and the height of any differential ring element of the shell above the base (MH distribution). The MH distribution is, of course more severe. In a discussion to the aforementioned paper (2), Professor Arya noted that the MH distribution of the base shear gave unconservative results when compared to accelerations computed from a dynamic analysis, while a distribution proportional to the mass and the square of the height of the differential ring element above the base (MHª distribution) seemed to exhibit closer correlation. Accordingly, the purposes of this paper are: [1] to derive closed form expres- sions for the membrane stress resultants for a hyperboloid of revolution under a quasistatic MH distribution of the base shear; and [2] to present a comparative study showing distributions. the differences in stress resultants obtained from the M, MH and MH