His father was , a Prussian nobleman, lieutenant, mineralogist and engineer who emigrated to Brazil in 1824, becoming later a businessman and a licensed captain of the
Imperial Brazilian Army. He was enrolled at the
Naval School on 25 January 1852 and became a
midshipman in 1854. In December 1858, he was promoted to second lieutenant and professor of the 4th year course at the Naval School. He was a precursor in
hydrography and gave his first course in this subject at the Marine Academy of
Rio de Janeiro in 1858. He then published the first treatise on hydrography in Portuguese. During the
Paraguayan War, commanding the gunboat '''', he was one of the heroes of the bombardment of
Corrientes, occupied by the defenders of
Paraguay. Then, on 11 June 1865, he won the officer's medal of the
Imperial Order of the Cross for his actions in the naval
battle of the Riachuelo. On 13 and 14 July 1865, in new battles, he managed to set fire to the Paraguayan steamer ''
, which had run aground. On 28 November 1865, he chased the Paraguayan steamer Pira-Guirá'', forced it to run aground and seized it. He then explored the coasts of Brazil in the vicinity of
Santa Catarina Island. In 1871, he was entrusted with the delimitation of the borders between Brazil and
Peru: leaving with his colleagues from Rio de Janeiro in October 1871, he travelled up the
Amazon to beyond the
Pongo de Manseriche, up the
Huallaga river to the rapids in the foothills of the
Andes, the
Rio Negro and the
Japurá River to the cataracts, then the
Apaporis, the
Madeira, the
Purus, the
Jutaí, the
Putumayo and part of the
Juruá rivers. Promoted to
rear-admiral, he led the Brazilian mission that observed the
transit of Venus in front of the sun at
Saint Thomas in the
Caribbean Sea and at
Punta Arenas in
Patagonia in 1882. He founded the first geographical society in Rio and organised the hydrographic service of his country. In 1912, he was promoted to
admiral. He was also Brazil's minister plenipotentiary in
Belgium,
Italy and
Austria and was elected senator for the state of
Amazonas. ==Descent==