Édouard-Alfred Martel Édouard-Alfred Martel Édouard-Alfred Martel (1 July 1859, Pontoise, Val-d'Oise – 3 June 1938, Montbrison), the 'father of modern speleology', was a world pioneer of cave exploration, study, and documentation. Martel explored thousands of caves in his native France and many other countries, popularised the pursuit of cave exploration, introduced the concept of speleology as a distinct area of scientific study, maintained an extensive archive, and in 1895 founded , the first organisation devoted to cave science in the world. Édouard-Alfred Martel was born in Pontoise, Seine-et-Oise on 1 July 1859. Born into a family of lawyers, he studied at the
French Federation of Speleology its intense activity and partly because of the production of numerous publications including the "Proceedings of the International Congress of 1953". At the general meeting of the CNS appointed 10 May 1958, Geo Marchand was designated to organise the 2nd National Congress of Speleology in Cahors in 1959, with the group , of which he was President. Three hundred cavers from the CNS and the SSF took part in the event, from 6–10 September 1959. It gave rise to the presentation of 26 papers and five different films and inspired in the participants a desire for unification. The year 1961