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Rediscovery of the Elements
Cronstedt and Nickel
James L. Marshall, Beta Eta 1971, and
Virginia R. Marshall, Beta Eta 2003,
Department of Chemistry, University of
North Texas, Denton, TX 76203-5070,
jimm@unt.edu
Axel Fredrik Cronstedt (1722-1765) (Figure
1) was born in Str6psta, an estate 38 km south-
west of Stockholm (Figure 2).' Cronstedt was
the great-grandson of Erik Jonsson Dahlberg
(1625-1703), a noted fortifications director dur-
ing Sweden's military predominance of the
1600s. Dahlberg owned various estates about
Stockholm, including Stropsta, where descen-
dants of his daughter Countess Dorothea Beata
Dahlberg (1669-1712) settled. Axel Cronstedt's
father was Gabriel Olderman Cronstedt
(1670-1757), himself an engineer in the mili-
tary. By 1758, Str6psta had been sold and the
estate was allowed to deteriorate. Today
Stropsta consists of a scatter of houses in a rural
setting of canola fields and rye fields ("rapsfalt
och regflt")-a popular setting for photo-
graphic essays-with no hint of the noble lin-
eage who had once lived there.2-3
Axel Cronstedt was encouraged by his father
Gabriel to follow in his footsteps and to study
engineering, surveying, and cartography.'
However, Cronstedt did not choose the military
profession; instead, in 1738, he entered the
University of Uppsala where he was instructed
by Johan Gottschalk Wallerius (1709-1785), the
first professor of chemistry (1750-1767), and
the astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744),
the inventor of the eponymous thermometer.
(The original chemistry building', and observa-
tory still stand and have been previously
described in The HEXAGON). However,
Cronstedt never received a degree because
with the renewed threat of war in 1743, his
father was recalled to his military duties as an
inspector of military fortifications and
required the amanuensis services of his son.
During these travels Axel saw his first mines
and he became fascinated with mining and
mineralogy.'b
During these mining travels, Axel Cronstedt
met many persons in mining who guided him
during his career.' Two major influences were
George Brandt (1694-1768), the discoverer of
cobalt,4' and Sven Rinman (1720-1792), the
"father of Swedish mining and metallurgy.""
Brandt (not to be confused with Hennig Brand,
1630-1710, the discoverer of phosphorus,")
worked at the Laboratorium Chemicum, the royal
mining laboratory in Stockholm (Figures 3, 4).
Cronstedt joined Brandt2' in the Laboratorium
during 1746-1748 where he learned chemical
analysis and the chemistry of smelting. He also
visited the historic copper mines of Brandt at
Riddarhyttan (Figure 2) , the site of Brandt's
1735 cobalt discovery." Sven Rinman
(1720-1792), a member of Royal Board of
Mining and Metallurgy (Bergskollegium),h was
the discoverer of Rinman's green (CoZnO2), a
pigment produced by heating cobalt oxide and
zinc oxide. Cronstedt met Rinman at Uppsala
and the two were close friends throughout their
lives. It was Rinman who got Cronstedt the
post at the Laboratorium and who then appoint-
ed him Assistant Superintendent of Mines.2b3
The critical role of the blowpipe. Cronstedt
was the first person to use the blowpipe in sys-
tematic analysis of minerals." This simple tool
was originally used by the goldsmiths to heat
and solder a pin-sized spot in jewelry, but was
adapted to the identification of components of
small ore samples. In this method, the operator
used a brass tube to blow a concentrated
stream of air through a flame (e.g., candle) to
heat a localized region on a test specimen. By
varying the position of the blowpipe in the
flame, one could treat the sample with an oxi-
dizing flame or a reducing flame (or, in pre-
Figure 1. Axel Fredrik Cronstedt medallion, locat-
ed in the Gamla Jernkontoret ("big iron office"),
Kungstradgdrdsgatan 6, Stockholm (N59 19.85
E18 04.37), located only 250 meters south of the
famous Berzelius statue." The medallion was
prepared in the 1870s by Johan FrithiofKjellberg
(1836-1885), after an earlier portrait. Kjellberg's
best known work is the statue of Carl von Linne in
the Humlegdrden (N59 20.34 E18* 04.37).
Courtesy, Jernkontoret.
Lavoisier parlance, the phlogiston-poor or
phlogiston-rich region of the flame). One
would note color changes (both of the sample
and of the flame), melting, sublimation, decom-
position, and behavior with fluxes (such as
borax), to make remarkably rapid and accurate
identifications. In addition, the portability of
this compact kit of instruments and chemicals
allowed one to perform analyses in the home,
laboratory, or field. Cronstedt characterized all
the minerals at his disposal; in 1756, he studied
the aluminosiliciate which "boils" (because of
entrapped water) by blowpipe analysis' and
named it: "zeolite" for Greek "boiling stone."
Soon many were using this tool-Sir Humphry
Davy (1778-1829)" and Jons Jakob Berzelius
(1779-1848)' always carried their blowpipe kits
with them on their travels throughout Europe.
Various mineralogists discovered eleven ele-
ments with the aid of a blowpipe"-and the
first of these was nickel by Cronstedt (vide
infra).
THE HEXAGON/SUMMER 2014
24