Édouard-Alfred Martel (1 July 1859, Pontoise, Val-d'Oise – 3 June 1938, Montbrison), the 'father of modern speleology',[1] was a world pioneer of cave exploration, study, and documentation.

No man has gone before us in these depths, no one knows where we go nor what we see, nothing so strangely beautiful was ever presented to us, and spontaneously we ask each other the same question: are we not dreaming?Édouard-Alfred Martel was born in Pontoise, Seine-et-Oise on 1 July 1859.

In 1886, after completing his military service, he earned a law degree and became a licensed attorney with the Commercial Court of the Seine.

From 1883, he conducted work on the karstic plateaus of the Causses, shaped by the gorges of the Tarn, Jonte, Dourbie and Lot.

In 1894, he published The Abyss, a book in which he describes the wonders of the underworld he discovered and visited during the six seasons of exploration he undertook from 1888 to 1893.

In 1896, he was invited by the Archduke Luis Salvator, a cousin of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, to visit their country.

He traveled throughout Europe, Belgium, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, where he investigated the course of the Trebišnjica, considered as one of the longest underground rivers in the world.

Throughout his life, Martel strongly promoted the study of speleology, striving to increase its recognition as a scientific field.

[5] In 1895 in Paris, Martel founded the Société de Spéléologie, a scientific organisation which would regularly publish articles on speleology in its periodical, Spelunca.