Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

of a naval base but with the decline o f this activity it hopes to restore its fortunes
in terms o f industry. The Italsider full-cycle steel works using American coal and
west African ore is the most important development so far.
Brindisi (76,000) where a vast petro-chemical plant (Shell-Montecatini) has
recently been estabhshed is the third corner o f Apuha’s triangular ‘pole of
development’. The town itself hes in the fork between two submerged ‘fossil’
valleys.
V[d] Basilicata
THE SOUTH
Basihcata is the Byzantine name for the region which in Roman (and fascist
times) was known as Lucania. The modem regione stretches westwards from the
edge o f the Murge across the Lucanian Apennines to the G u lf o f PoUcastro, and
southwards from the Ofanto to the G u lf of Taranto. Certainly one o f the most
isolated and neglected regions o f Italy, it consists o f three main physical elements
- the Lucanian Apennines, the Bradano trench and the small volcanic area o f M.
Vulture.
The Lucanian Apennines are less o f a range than a series o f isolated massifs;
the dislocation o f these highlands is associated with a series o f faults the most
important o f which are orientated N W -SE (Vallo di Diano), while others trend
less obviously N E -S W (Platano and upper Basento valleys). The cores o f the
massifs consist o f Triassic limestones (M. Maruggio, M. Volturino, M . Sirino,
Sra. Dolcedorme) often dolomitic in character, which emerge boldly through an
extensive cover o f Oligocene-Eocene clays and sandstones (flysch). These in turn
are masked locally by Miocene sediments, mainly marls, or by Phocene sands and
clays {molasse). The latter are represented in several transverse valleys which
were submerged to form straits by the Pliocene sea from which only the higher
parts o f the Lucanian Apennines emerged as a chain o f islands, but they are most
extensive in south-eastern Potenza province between the Agri and the Sinni.
Their altitude, sometimes over 800m, testifies to the extent o f the post-Pliocene
uplift. The limestone massifs, most o f which exceed 1500m, are o f httle agricultural
value; over most o f their surface the destruction o f the forest cover o f beech
and oak has produced a sterile karstic waste suitable for little but sheep grazing,
but neighbouring areas reap some benefit from springs issuing from the sides o f
the massifs (Vallo di Diano). The vast expanses o f Tertiary sediments, lying
mainly to the east o f the massifs, present a dreary landscape o f rounded ridges
separated by open valleys. Huge tracts are left under scrub and threadbare
pasture, and although there are patches o f coltura promiscua (upper Sinni
valley) most o f the cultivated area is devoted to wheat. Hill-top villages and the
preference o f the roads, most o f them fantastically tortuous, for the ridges underhne
the instabihty o f the clays. In fact the concentration o f settlement in sizeable
villages, the fragmentation and dispersal o f property, and the extensive character
of the land-use assign most o f this zone to the latifondo contadino.
From the point o f view o f human settlement the second main sub-region o f
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