These caves was probably one Captain Jones who in 1827
described and provided a plan of a cave he named as Bhuban Cave. This cave is
yet to be identified today. Jones’ work is however the earliest known
record of a systematic survey of a natural cave in India.
Walters, Campbell and Teraneau undertook the next
known cave exploration in 1828. This cave was also described by Hamilton (1828)
a., “Cavern of Boobooan.” From the cave plan provided by Walters
(Asiatic Researches, Calcutta 1832,vol.17, facing page 512) it appears that
Bhuban Cave or “Cavern of Borboonn” is the present-day great Lymput
of Nought village.
In 1875 a British explorer, M Sanderson, noted a cave called Bat’s House in the lower Simsanggiri (Someshwari) valley, which later was visited, according to his notebooks, by TD Latouche in 1881. From then onward nothing was learnt about the cave, locally known as Dobhakol (now known as Sim Dobhakol) until 1922. During that year S Kemp and B Chops of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, organised the most comprehensive inter scientific research project that ever took place in India. The cave was maped to a length of 1200 m its watercourses were negotiated by swimming with the aid of petrol lamps, the sumps were tried with electrical torches, samples of rock were collected, fish were caught and bugs collected.