The inequality which is proved here was established under different conditions in a paper entitled ‘Periodic points on an algebraic variety', which is to appear in the Annals of Mathematics. It is hoped that the new formulation will be more useful for applications. The present investigations use the rather sophisticated techniques of the ‘Theory of distributions’ which was developed by Weil (1). As the content of this theory may be unfamiliar to the reader, Weil's results are described at some length, though of course, his proofs are not given. The one result which we need and which is not given explicitly by Weil, is proved in detail.