Volume 1

Italy / by K. Mason.

  • Great Britain. Naval Intelligence Division
Date:
1944-1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Italy / by K. Mason. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/738 page 21
    of longitudinal streams makes communication from valley to valley difficult. The transverse routes are in many cases international and their relative importance depends on the nature and ease of the passes to which they lead. The absence of longitudinal routes in the Alps is partly counter- balanced by the ease of communication along their foot in the Northern Plain. ‘This, the most extensive plain in Italy (over 200 miles long and about 50 broad), is bounded on the west and north by the Alps and Alpine foothills, and on the south by the Apennines, which rise abruptly along a remarkably straight line. In the south- east the plain reaches the sea between Rimini and Monfalcone in a - low-lying lagoon and delta coast of very irregular outline. The general flatness of the plain is broken by Monferrato, a northerly extension of the Apennines between Turin and Alessandria, and by the Mi. Berici and the Euganean hills, which rise like islands to the west of Padua. ‘The general surface slopes gently towards the river Po and the sea. Along the Alpine margin the plain rises to 300-600 feet in the east and to 1,000-1,700 feet in the west. The relief of the Peninsula is arranged in three parallel, longi- tudinal strips, dominated by the curved course of the Apennines -which keeps close to the Tyrrhenian Sea in the north and south and to the Adriatic in the centre. On the outer, eastern side their limit is comparatively clear cut. The inner, Tyrrhenian side of the range is confused, both geologically and topographically, by the presence of interior lowland basins among the mountains, and of semi-isolated offshoots of the mountains in the lower country. The effect of all this on the subdivision of the Peninsula is notable. A central ridge of highland traverses its whole length, and occupies most of the ‘toe’. The coastal belts sometimes are merely the lower maritime slopes of these mountains, as in Liguria or along the Adriatic coastland, but sometimes are composed of distinct physical regions, as in the Apulian Region, the Pre-Apennines and parts of Campania. ‘These rather heterogeneous units are bound together, by their common maritime nature and importance as routeways, into two coastal belts, the west side and the east side of the Peninsula. The West Side of the Peninsula includes a large number of inde- pendent units (plains, hill masses, &c.) which are roughly grouped into three sections, each with some characteristics in common. Liguria in the north is merely the lower slopes of the Maritime Alps and Ligurian Apennines where these come close to the sea. South of the river Magra, the Pre-Apennine region embraces a number of
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