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
European and American voyages of scientific exploration exploration. belonged to the Committee on Fisheries of the United States and it carried out numerous scientific expeditions under the direction of Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835–1910). The primary goal was an inventory of the Pacific fishery reserves but many other observations are carried out by Townsend and other scientists. Zoologist Walter Rothschild commissioned the Webster-Harris Expedition to the Galápagos Islands from June 1897 to February 1898. This expedition on the schooner "Lila & Mattie" is well-described in the 1983 book titled "Dear Lord Rothschild" by Miriam Rothschild. In the 1936 book "Oceanic Birds of South America" by Robert Cushman Murphy,