(Notebooks of Southern Speleology)
Short notes on the Cave of Castellana near Bari
Luigi dell'Erba
This is the anastatic reprint of one of the first papers of apulian speleology, which became quite important after the discovery of the karst system of the Pozzo Cucù Caves (1200Pu/BA). It is a work by eng. prof. Luigi dell'Erba, which was originally published in Naples, and of which very few copies are still available.
It is now clear that the cave described by Prof. Dell'Erba, presently called Cave of the Hyaena (7 Pu/BA), is part of the Pozzo Cucù karst system.
Very important information are in the work by Dell'Erba: it is referred that the cavity had been used as show cave since the end of 1800 (thus, it was the first show cave in Apulia region); the first vandalic actions against the cave are reported; the first explorations at the Castellana Caves are also described.