[3] Cronstedt is considered a founder of modern mineralogy,[6] 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).

[4] Beginning in 1738, Axel Cronstedt was an unregistered student at the University of Uppsala, hearing lectures[4] with Johan Gottschalk Wallerius (1709–1785), professor of chemistry, and astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744).

[1] In 1743, during an unstable period politically, Cronstedt left Uppsala to act as his father's secretary on a military tour of inspection.

[4] From 1746 to 1748 Cronstedt took classes with George Brandt, the discoverer of cobalt, at the royal mining laboratory in Stockholm, the Laboratorium Chemicum.

[8][9][4] Cronstedt discovered the mineral now known as scheelite in 1751 at Bispberg Klack, later obtaining samples from the Kuhschacht mine in Freiberg, Germany.

Thirty years later, Carl Wilhelm Scheele determined that scheelite was in fact an ore, and that a new metal could be extracted from it.

[16] Cronstedt's book Försök til mineralogie, eller mineral-rikets upställning (“An attempt at mineralogy or arrangement of the Mineral Kingdom”, 1758) was originally published anonymously.

[9][17]: 127–128 [11][18] 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.