MARTEL, DOUARD-ALFRED

born 1859, Pontoise, Fr. died 1938, Montbrison French geographer and speleologist, known for his pioneer work in 1894 on the physiography and accessibility of caves. As founder of speleology, or the scientific exploration of caverns, he explored the limestone caves of Cvennes and, with others, made descents into previously unknown caves of France, Ireland, Austria, Majorca, and Greece. In 1895 he founded the Society of Speleology in France. Martel was the tribunal of commerce in Paris from 1886 until 1899, when he became a professor of subterranean geography at the Sorbonne; he was appointed a member of the staff of the Department of Geological Maps of France in 1901.