  Approximate analytical solutions in closed form are obtained for the
5-dimensional Bohr Hamiltonian with the Woods-Saxon potential, taking advantage
of the Pekeris approximation and the exactly soluble one-dimensional extended
Woods-Saxon potential with a dip near its surface. Comparison to the data for
several gamma-unstable and prolate deformed nuclei indicates that the potential
can describe well the ground state and gamma-1 bands of many prolate deformed
nuclei corresponding to large enough "well size" and diffuseness, while it
fails in describing the beta-1 bands, due to its lack of a hard core, as well
as in describing gamma-unstable nuclei, because of the small "well size" and
diffuseness they exhibit.
