Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt (/kroonstet/ 23 December 1722 – 19 August 1765) was a Swedish mineralogist and chemist who discovered the element nickel in 1751 as a mining expert with the Bureau of Mines. Cronstedt is considered a founder of modern mineralogy, for introducing the blowpipe as a tool for mineralogists, and for proposing that the mineral kingdom be organized on the basis of chemical analysis in his book Försök til mineralogie, eller mineral-rikets upställning ("An attempt at mineralogy or arrangement of the Mineral Kingdom", 1758).
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Life
Axel Fredrik Cronstedt was born on 23 December 1722, on the estate of Ströpsta, in Sudermania. His father, Gabriel Olderman Cronstedt (1670–1757), was a military engineer. His mother, Maria Elizabeth Adlersberg, was Gabriel Cronstedt's second wife.
Beginning in 1738, Axel Cronstedt was an unregistered student at the University of Uppsala, hearing lectures with Johan Gottschalk Wallerius (1709–1785), professor of chemistry, and astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744). At Uppsala, he became a friend of Sven Rinman, discoverer of Rinman's green. In 1743, during an unstable period politically, Cronstedt left Uppsala to act as his father's secretary on a military tour of inspection. This tour strengthened his interest in mines and mineralogy.
Cronstedt entered the School of Mines where his instructors included geologist Daniel Tilas (1712–1772). On Tilas' recommendation, Cronstedt went on mining tours in the summers of 1744 and 1745. In 1746, he surveyed copper mines. From 1746 to 1748, Cronstedt took classes with Georg Brandt, the discoverer of cobalt, at the royal mining laboratory in Stockholm, the Laboratorium Chemicum. There he studied chemical analysis and smelting.