Born and educated in Scotland, he emigrated to Argentina in 1862, and on the outbreak of the Paraguayan War served as a pharmacist in the Argentine Army medical corps.

[4] Moving to the field of industrial chemistry, he was head of the chemical laboratory of Glasgow University and then manager of an animal charcoal manufacturer in Greenock.

When President-Marshall Solano Lopez of Paraguay invaded Corrientes Province in 1865 there broke out the War of the Triple Alliance and Kyle joined the medical corps of the Argentine Army as a pharmacist with the rank of lieutenant.

He served on board the hospital ship Pavón and returned to Buenos Aires in December 1866 in charge of a convoy of wounded soldiers.

Along with studies on the best location for groundwater wells, he advised on the collection of freshwater from rivers to supply the city of Buenos Aires[8]On a vanadiferous lignite found in the Argentine Republic with analysis of the ash [9] was read before the British Association Edinburgh meeting in 1892.