over Triassic and Old Red Sandstone areas the clay is red, over Carboniferous rocks it is often black, over Silurian rock it may be buff or grey, and where the ice has passed over chalk the clay may be quite white and chalky (chalky boulder clay). Much boulder clay is of a bluish-grey colour where unexposed, but it becomes brown upon being weathered.
The boulders are held within the clay in an irregular manner, and they vary in size from mere pellets up to masses many tons in weight. Usually they are somewhat oblong, and often they possess a flat side or “sole”; they may be angular, sub-angular, or well rounded, and, if they are hard rocks, they frequently bear grooves and scratches caused by contact with other rocks while held firmly in the moving ice. Like the clay in which they are borne, the boulders belong to districts over which the ice has travelled; in some regions they are mainly limestones or sandstones; in others they are granite, basalts, gneisses, &c.; indeed, they may consist of any hard rock. By the nature of the contained boulders it is often possible to trace the path along which a vanished ice-sheet moved; thus in the Glacial drift of the east coast of England many Scandinavian rocks can be recognized.
With the exception of foraminifera which have been found in the boulder clay of widely separated regions, fossils are practically unknown; but in some maritime districts marine shells have been incorporated with the clay. See Glacial Period; and Glacier.
BOULĒ (Gr. βουλή, literally “will,” “advice”; hence a
“council”), the general term in ancient Greece for an advisory
council. In the loose Homeric state, as in all primitive societies,
there was a council of this kind, probably composed of the heads
of families, i.e. of the leading princes or nobles, who met usually
on the summons of the king for the purpose of consultation.
Sometimes, however, it met on its own initiative, and laid suggestions
before the king. It formed a means of communication
between the king and the freemen assembled in the Agora. In
Dorian states this aristocratic form of government was retained
(for the Spartan Council of Elders see Gerousia). In Athens
the ancient council was called the Boule until the institution of
a democratic council, or committee of the Ecclesia, when, for
purposes of distinction, it was described as “the Boulē on the
Areopagus,” or, more shortly, “the Areopagus” (q.v.). It must
be clearly understood that the second, or Solonian Boule, was
entirely different from the Areopagus which represented the
Homeric Council of the King throughout Athenian history, even
after the “mutilation” carried out by Ephialtes. Further, it
is, as will appear below, a profound mistake to call the second
Boule a “senate.” There is no real analogy between the Roman
senate and the Athenian council of Five Hundred.
Before describing the Athenian Boule, the only one of its kind of which we have even fairly detailed information, it is necessary to mention that councils existed in other Greek states also, both oligarchic and democratic. A Boulē was in the first place a necessary part of a Greek oligarchy; the transition from monarchy to oligarchy was nominally begun by the gradual transference of the powers of the monarch to the Boule of nobles. Further, in the Greek democracy, the larger democratic Boule was equally essential. The general assembly of the people was utterly unsuited to the proper management of state affairs in all their minutiae. We therefore find councils of both kinds in almost all the states of Greece. (1) At Corinth we learn that there was an oligarchic council of unknown numbers presided over by eight leaders (Nicol. Damasc. Frag. 60). It was probably like the old Homeric council, except that its constitution did not depend on a birth qualification, but on a high census. This was natural in Corinth where, according to Herodotus (ii. 167), mercantile pursuits bore no stigma. (2) From an inscription we learn that the Athenians, in imposing a constitution on Erythrae (about 450 B.C.), included a council analogous to their own. (3) In Elis (Thuc. v. 47) there was an aristocratic council of ninety, which was superseded by a popular council of six hundred (471). (4) Similarly in Argos there were an aristocratic council of eighty and later a popular council of much larger size (Thuc. v. 47). Councils are also found at (5) Rhodes, (6) Megalopolis (democratic), (7) Corcyra (democratic), (Thuc. iii. 70). Of these seven the most instructive is that of Erythrae, which proves that in the 5th century the Council of Five Hundred was so efficient in Athens that a similar body was imposed at Erythrae (and probably in the other tributary cities).
The Boulē at Athens. History.—The origin of the second Boulē, or Council of Four Hundred, at Athens is involved in obscurity. In the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens (c. 4), it is stated that Draco established a council of 401, and that he transferred to it some of the functions of the Council of Areopagus (q.v.). It is, however, generally held (see Draco) that this statement is untrue, and that it was Solon who first established the council as a part of the constitution. Thirdly, it has been held that the council was not invented either by Draco or by Solon, but was of older and unknown origin. Fourthly, it has also been maintained by some recent writers that no Boulē existed before Cleisthenes. The principal evidence for this view is the omission of any reference to the Boulē in one of the earliest Athenian inscriptions, that relating to Salamis (Hicks and Hill, No. 4), where in place of the customary formula of a later age, ἔδοξε τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τῷ δήμῳ, we have the formula ἔδοχσεν τῷ δήμῳ. This argument is far from conclusive, and it is clear from the Constitution (c. 20) that the resistance of the Boulē to Cleomenes and Isagoras was anterior to the legislation of Cleisthenes (i.e. that the Boulē in question was the Solonian and not the Cleisthenian). On the whole it is reasonable to conclude that it was Solon who invented the Boulē to act as a semi-democratic check upon the democracy, whose power he was increasing at the expense of the oligarchs by giving new powers to the people in the Ecclesia and the Dicasteries. Practically nothing is known of the operations of this council until the struggle between Isagoras and Cleisthenes (Herod, v. 72). Solon’s council had been based on the four Ionic tribes. When Cleisthenes created the new ten tribes in order to destroy the local influence of dominant families and to give the country demes a share in government, he changed the Solonian council into a body of 500 members, 50 from each tribe. This new body (see below) was the keystone of the Cleisthenean democracy, and may be said in a sense to have embodied the principle of local representation. After Cleisthenes, the council remained unaltered till 306 B.C., when, on the addition of two new tribes named after Antigonus and his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, its numbers were increased to 600. In A.D. 126–127 the old number of 500 was restored. A council of 750 members is mentioned in an inscription of the early 3rd century A.D., and about A.D. 400 the number of councillors had fallen to 300.
Constitution and Functions.—(a) Under Solon the council consisted of 400 members, 100 from each of the four Ionic tribes. It is certain that all classes were eligible except the Thētes, but the method of appointment is not known. Three suggestions have been made, (1) that each tribeSolon’s council. chose its representatives, (2) that they were chosen by lot from qualified citizens in rotation, (3) that the combined method of selection by lot from a larger number of elected candidates was employed. According to the passage in Plutarch’s Solon the functions of this body were from the first probouleutic (i.e. it prepared the business for the Ecclesia). Others hold that this function was not assigned to it until the Cleisthenean reforms. When we consider, however, the double danger of leaving the Ecclesia in full power, and yet under the presidency of the aristocratic archons, it seems probable that the probouleutic functions were devised by Solon as a method of maintaining the balance. On this hypothesis the Solonian Boulē was from the first what it certainly was later, a committee of the Ecclesia, i.e. not a “senate.” It may be regarded as certain Cleisthenes’ council.that the system of Prytaneis was the invention of Cleisthenes, not of Solon. (b) Under Cleisthenes the council reached its full development as a democratic representative body. Its actual organization is still uncertain, but it may be inferred that it became gradually a more strictly self-existent body than the Solonian council. Every
