text: Cronstedt initiated the use of the blowpipe for the analysis of minerals. Originally a goldsmiths tool, it became widely used for the identification of small ore samples, particularly in Sweden where his contemporaries had seen Cronstedt use it. Use of the blowpipe enabled mineralogists to discover eleven new elements, beginning with Cronstedts discovery of  nickel.
  John Joseph Griffin credits Cronstedt as "the first person of eminence who used the blowpipe" and  "the founder of Mineralogy" in A Practical Treatise on the Use of the Blowpipe (1827).
  Cronstedt discovered the mineral now known as scheelite in 1751 at Bispberg Klack, later obtaining samples from the Kuhschacht mine in Freiberg, Germany. He gave it the name tungsten, meaning "heavy stone" in Swedish. Thirty years later, Carl Wilhelm Scheele determined that scheelite was in fact an ore, and that a new metal could be extracted from it. This element then became known by Cronstedt's name, tungsten.
  Cronstedt also extracted the element nickel from ores in the cobalt mines of Los, Sweden. The ore was described by miners as kupfernickel because it had a similar appearance to copper (kupfer) and a mischievous sprite (nickel) was supposed by miners to be the cause of their failure to extract copper from it. Cronstedt  presented his research on nickel to the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1751 and 1754. Decades later, some scientists still argued that it was a mixture, and not a new metal, but its nature was eventually accepted.
  In 1756, Cronstedt coined the term zeolite after heating the mineral stilbite with a blowpipe flame. He was the first to describe its distinctive properties, having observed the "frothing" when heated with a blowpipe.
  Cronstedts book Försök  til  mineralogie,  eller  mineral-rikets upställning (“An attempt at mineralogy or arrangement of the  Mineral Kingdom”, 1758) was originally published anonymously. In it, Cronstedt proposed that minerals be classified on the basis of chemical analysis of their composition.  He was surprised that others supported his ideas and put them into practice. It was translated into English by Gustav Von Engeström (1738-1813) as An essay towards a system of mineralogy (1770). Engeström added an appendix, "Description and Use of a Mineralogical Pocket Laboratory; and especially the Use of the Blow-pipe in Mineralogy", which brought considerable attention to Cronstedts use of the blowpipe.
  Cronstedt noted in Försök  til  mineralogie,  eller  mineral-rikets upställning that he had observed an  “unidentified  earth” in a heavy red stone from the Bastnäs mine in Riddarhyttan.  Forty-five years later, Jöns Jacob Berzelius  and  Wilhelm Hisinger isolated the first element of the  lanthanide series of the rare earth elements,  cerium, in ore from the mine.