NAIKANESHWAR GUPHA 2

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A relatively small entrance (for me possible to get in) gives access to about 40 m cave without known name (if it exists) of it's own (Kotlia 2005.11.05 Mss; Breitenbach 2005.12.01 Mss). CAVE DESCRIPTION: The floor is full of soil. Very narrow cave (may be joined to the upper [sic! for: abovementioned] cave (mentioned as up). Excellent stalactite [speleothems]. No stalagmite. Vegetation as above (Kotlia 2005.11.05 Mss: Notebook), i.e. dominated by oak. At the entrance C4 plants. SITUATION: Obviously somewhere -near- but unfortunately at an unspecified distance in an unspecified direction from the first –>Naikaneshwar Gupha. POSITION: Bahadur S. Kotlia (2005.11.05 Mss: Notebook) recorded a position N29°56'74”: E080°04'19” (unspecified precision error, GPS Garmin Etex) that features blunderful 74 seconds in a minute and looks like -- but this is mere guesswork -- representing a format where decimal fractions of minutes (N29°56.74': E080°04.19' = N29°56'44”: E080°04'11”) wee interpreted as seconds. This interpretation, however, puts the 2nd Naikaneshwar Dana at an unlikely large linear distance of more than 3 km (3180 m) approximately ESE from the first one. Another interpretation, based on assuming a misprinted northing N29°56'74” standing for N29°56'24- (cave 2 lies 3.65 km ESE of cave 1) or for N29°56'14- (cave 2 lies 3.65 km SE of cave 1), places the 2nd Naikaneshwar cave, which reputedly May join the first cave, again at far too large distances from the first one. Breitenbach, Sebastian F.M. (2006.11.17 personal correspondence: Dharamjali Höhlenplan) forwards the interesting statement of Prof. Bahadur S. Kotlia explaining that he selected with his GPS Garmin Etrex the geodetic datum -MSS- (bullshit?) when positioning cave entrances in 2005: Zu den Koordinaten aller Höhlen, die mit Kotlias GPS gemessen wurden (1. Trip 2005) hab ich rausbekommen das es nicht WGS84 sondern ein MSS (so Kotlia) gewesen sei.