[CRONSTEDT, Axel Fredrik] Försök till en Mineralogie, eller Mineral Rikets Upställning. Stockholm, Johan Arv. Carlbohm, 1781
8vo (179 x 106 mm), pp. [l] 302 [2] with engraved title including a vignette of a mine; small portion of title torn and repaired without loss, a very nice copy in contemporary half calf. £550
Second edition (first 1758), rare, of the work that founded chemical mineralogy. Cronstedt's 'experiments, oriented toward the chemistry of metals, enabled him to gain an unprecedented insight into the inner structure of minerals. When this insight was combined with a clear understanding of his findings as a basis for a rational mineral system, it revealed the errors in earlier methods of classification. This prompted Cronstedt to publish anonymously his Försök til mineralogie... In this essay he sought to lay the foundations for a new mineralogical system. Here, for the first time, he established the correct distinctions between simple minerals and rock minerals consisting of a mixture of several minerals. Since he thereby excluded the rock minerals from mineralogy as such, he also excluded fossil material, concretions, and the like... The work attracted considerable attention; and after it was translated into German in 1760, it quickly became known outside Sweden. Abraham Gottlob Werner, the world-famous mineralogist in Freiberg and the reformer of mineralogy, paid him due homage; and Berzelius declared him to be the founder of chemical mineralogy. In this connection it must be pointed out that even if other investigators had previously used the blowpipe in their tests, nobody before Constedt had so methodically applied this tool to the examination of minerals. Thus, he is entitled to be considered the actual founder of systematic blowpipe analysis' (DSB).
Ward and Carozzi 550; NUC: IU
£550
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