4 J. Rofe — On Litkodomous Perforations. 



seems to me that the amount of contraction -would be greater than 

 the mere difference between the dimensions of the moulds when cold 

 and that of the cooled blocks ? I ask this question because I am 

 engaged in revising a paper of mine relating to the cooling of the 

 earth, in which I am inclined to support the view of the solidity of 

 the globe, though I feel strongly the inadequacy of our means of 

 arriving at any certainty on the subject." 



In reply to this I wrote Mr. Fisher to the effect that allowance 

 had been made for the expansion of the moulds, amongst other 

 means, by measuring the moulds whilst hot ; but it appears now, 

 from his published paper, that he has not modified the expressions 

 made use of in his comments u^Don my experiments. 



Mr. Fisher's paper is a purely mathematical one, and altogether 

 beyond the scope of my present communication ; yet what I have 

 already stated is but another proof of the tendency which mathema- 

 ticians apparently have to treat experimental data in their own way, 

 overlooking the vital importance of thoroughly sifting their evidence, 

 or premises on which they base their elaborate reasonings. The 

 recent notorious case of the Pascal forgeries is but an instance in 

 point ; and a representative of the Press pleasantly remarked that 

 nobody but a mathematician could have been deceived by such 

 imperfect evidence. 



II, — On some supposed Lithodomotjs Pekfoeatioks in Limestone 



EOCKS. 

 By John Eofb, F.G.S, 

 [PLATE I.] 



WITHIN the last few months considerable interest has been 

 revived on the question of the origin of certain small exca- 

 vations or borings which have been found in limestone rocks in 

 different localities in Sicily, France, England, and Wales. The first 

 public notice of them in England was by Dr. Buckland, whose 

 attention, when at a meeting of Geologists at Boulogne in 1839, was 

 called to some borings which had been found in the under-surface 

 of a ledge of Carboniferous Limestone rock in the Boulonnais. After 

 this Dr. Buckland examined some similar borings which the Eev. N. 

 Stapleton had observed near Tenby, and described both cases in a 

 communication to the Geological Society in 1841. About the same time 

 that Dr. Buckland was engaged with these excavations, M. Constant 

 Prevost found some similar perforations on Monte Pelegrino, near 

 Palermo. Mr. C. P. Jopling discovered them in Furness in 1843. M. 

 Bouchard Chantereaux, who met with them in the Bois des Koches, in 

 the Bas Boulonnais, has published a memoir on the subject, the result 

 of many years observation, to which I sliall have occasion again to 

 refer. Mr. Pengelly met with them in many localities iix the Torbay 

 district. They were also found on Birkrigg Common by Miss E 

 Hodgson, of Ulverston, and were described by her in vol. vii. of 

 The Geologist, p. 42. Mr. Darbyshire has discovered them in North 



