Edouard-Alfred Martel

Edouard-Alfred Martel was born with Pontoise on July 1st, 1859, died with Montbrison on June 3rd, 1938, it is regarded as the founder of the modern Spéléologie.

Biography

Edouard-Alfred Martel was born with Pontoise, chief town of the Val-d'Oise (95) on July 1st 1859. Child of a family of lawyers, it makes his studies with the college Condorcet with Paris. Very early, it becomes impassioned of Géographie and of natural science and it gains in 1877 the first price of geography to the open Competition. He is large reader of the work of Jules Verne.

In 1866, on vacation with his/her parents, it visits the caves of Gargas in the the Pyrenees. Other voyages enable him to traverse the Germany, the Austria and the Italy. In 1879, it visits the cave of Adelsberg, in Austria, vast whole of caves.

In 1886, after having finished its military service, it obtains a license of right and he becomes lawyer approved near the bankruptcy court of the the Seine.

Martel devotes its leisures and holidays to travel through France. During its displacements, It carries out work of Cartographie. As of 1883, it is interested in the plates desert of the Causses, worked by the throats of the Tarn, Jonte, Dourbie and the Lot.

In June 1888, it begins its career from speleologist with Bramabiau. it engages thus with some companions in a rock cavity where a brook known under the name of Bonheur is engulfed and reappearing further with the Abîme of Bramabiau. This forwarding will recognize two kilometers of galleries. The Spéléologie had been born.

In 1889, it publishes a collection of observations, which it entitles “the Cevennes” and in which it describes this area and its beauties. He also visits the Gouffre of Padirac, close to Rocamadour, an impressive well in the Causse of Gramat. He discovers an underground river there, with 100 meters of depth. Martel and its Gaupillat cousin leave to discovered with a boat. They will explore 2 kilometers of new galleries.

In 1894, it publishes “the Abysses” a work where it describes the wonders of the underground world which it discovered and visited during the six campaigns that it carried out of 1888 to 1893. During this period, he visited and indexed more than 230 cavities and caves. He recognized 250 kilometers of galleries of which he took precise readings and layouts. He tells in this work these explorations that he made with Louis Armand, one of his friends blacksmith. Louis Armand will become later his foreman.

In 1895, it widens its research fields and organizes forwardings in Ireland and England. He discovers the underground lake of Marble Arch in Northern Ireland. In the Yorkshire it carries out the first descent in the pit of, a sprinkled well of 110 meters. This same year, it founds the Company of Spéléologie and launches a periodic bulletin, “Spelunca”.

In 1896, It is invited by the archduke Luis Salvator, cousin of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph. With its foreman and companion Louis Armand, it explores the basement of the island of Majorque. In the Cueva del Drach close to Oporto Christo he at that time discovers the underground lake largest known.

Energy of exploits in exploits, it multiplies explorations. Its priority goes to the undergrounds of the Causses. It also explores the caves & caves of the areas limestones of Savoy, of the the Jura, Provence and the the Pyrenees. He traversed all the Europe, the Belgium, the Dalmatie, the Bosnia-Herzégovine, the Montenegro, where he studies the course of the Trebinjicica, longer underground river of the world. He also goes in Greece.

In 1897, tenth campaign excavations and discovered with Louis Armand of a sand pipe, on the Causse Méjean in Lozere which will become later the Aven Armand.

In 1899 it definitively leaves its community activities to be devoted only to its scientific research.

In 1905, it always explores the Large Canyon of the Verdon with its foreman and friendly Louis Armand and some others.

About the same time, he did not want to recognize paleolithic parietal art (Make of Gaume, Niaux) and quarreled with the abbot Henri Breuil, prehistorian already famous.

He was editor association of Nature of 1905 to 1909. Then devoted itself to the Société of Geography of which he had been elected president.

Edouard Alfred Martel dies on June 3rd 1938 in his castle of the Guard, close to Montbrison in the department of the the Loire.

Protection of water

In 1891, it is strongly poisoned after the absorption of a bubble of calf to the pit of Laberrie, in the Batch. A calf corpse in decomposition had polluted water that Martel had drunk with the close fountain.

In 1894, it shows in the abysses that " the presence of matter in decomposition at the bottom of a pit could contaminate a distant source of a few hundred meters, even several kilomètres". In its writings, it does not have of cease to denounce the water pollution by the corpses of animals.

Thanks to the joint action of Martel and professor Fournier, article 28 was introduced into the relative law with the public health of February 15th, 1902. It prohibited the jet of corpses of animals and putrescible refuses in the caves. This official text is more known under the name of law Martel. It thereafter was repealed and replaced by other legal texts.

Titles and distinctions

Grand Prix of physical sciences decreed by the Academy of Science in 1907.
Commander of the Legion of honor received on June 11th, 1927, at the time of the inaugural ceremony of its own statue drawn up at the edge of the Tarn.

Principal works

The work of Martel counts more than 1000 publications.

the Cevennes (1890)
the Abysses (1894) ISBN 2734805332
solid mass of Bernina - in collaboration with A. Lorria (1895)
Ireland and English caves (1897)
Trayas and Estérel (1899)
Speleology (1900)
the pit and the underground river of Padirac (1901)
underground Photography (1903)
speleology at the XXe century (1905)
ground and water - Treaty of hygiene - in collaboration with Launay, Ogier and bonjean (1906)
the Russian Riviera (1909)
caves and underground rivers of Belgium (1910) by E.Van Den Broeck, E. - has. Martel & Ed.Rahir - 2 volumes

the New Treaty of Subterranean water in 1922

causses and gorges of the Tarn (1926)
ignored France in two volumes (1928 - 1930)

major Causses (1936)

underground evolution (1938)

See too

Speleology
the Company of speleology
Pit of Padirac

References

ANDRE Daniel and Al : the feather and pits. Correspondence of Edouard Alfred Martel (1868-1936) , 1997, Meyrueis, Association Edouard Alfred Martel, 608 p. ill.
CASTERET Norbert: Martel, explorer of the underground world , 1943, Gallimard.
CHABERT C., COURVAL Mr. of: E. - has. Martel, 1859-1938, Bibliographie , 1971, impr. Marcellin, Autun.
COLLECTIVE: the man who travelled for the pits (homage to E.A. MARTEL) , Actes of the Conference of Mende, 17 October 18th, 1997, 1999, Archiv. EPD. Lozere, 421 p.
DELLUC B. and G., mishaps of the speleologist Edouard-Alfred Martel with prehistory and the abbot Henri Breuil , Bull. plowshare hist. and arch. of Périgord, 1998,125, pp. 627-655.
the film Forwarding in darkness of Bernard Kliebhan, 58 minutes, Germany, 1994. Producer Hessicher Runkfunk with Arte.

Bonds

Edouard Martel, creator of the fight against pollution Cartoon published in J2 Magazine n°26 - 8 pages scannées on line.

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