In '49 California was scarcely nearer to the civilization of the then existing States of the Union than Klondyke is to-day. Though the climate of California, when reached, was salubrious in the extreme, the hardships of an overland trip of more than three thousand miles or the scarcely less trying voyage "around the Horn," were quite as apt to deter the "tenderfoot" from attempting to seek fortune among the Sierras as are the extreme cold and possible privations that must be considered by the gold-hunters among the Alaskan mountains. But there were brave spirits in '49, who, defying every danger, flocked to the promised land, and realized not only their wildest dreams of wealth, but laid the foundation of one of the proudest among our galaxy of States. The population of the country by the census of 1850, a year later, was but 20,000,000. If there were thousands among those 20,000,000 who poured into California in '49, how much greater the influx into the region of the Klondyke will be if the same ratio of enterprise and adventure characterizes the 70,000,000 Americans of the present day. The first news of the discovery of gold in California was months in getting to "the States," and it was even months later before the gold fever had become really epidemic in the East. With the telegraph and cable of to-day the news from the Yukon has already encircled the globe and quickened the pulse of mankind in every land and latitude. There have been gold excitements at stated periods from the Eldorado of the Spaniards down to Johannisburg, but none that has arisen so suddenly and spread so rapidly as that created by the tidings from Klondyke. Nor would it seem that the future of this excitement can be even conjectured. And perhaps the reason for this may be found in the fact that instead of the fables of an Eldorado, the reports from the Yukon have been shewn to be authentic and trustworthy. THE GEOLOGY OF THE YUKON REGION. THE "MOTHER LODE" AND THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS. Under the caption "How the Gold Came to Klondyke Placers," Professor George Frederick Wright, of Oberlin College, author of "Man in the Glacial Period" and other geological works, has contributed to the New York Journal an interesting article in which he says: "The discovery of gold in large quantities on the Yukon River is by no means unexpected. Eleven years ago, the last word I heard as I left Juneau was the pledge of a returning tourist to meet his friend the next Summer and prospect in the Yukon region. "The great mass of gold-bearing quartz at the Treadwell mine, near Juneau, was what might be expected, and at the same time what might be the limitation of the supply. For more than ten years that mine has furnished more than a million dollars of gold annually, but it is not like ordinary quartz mines. It is rather a great, isolated mass of quartz with gold disseminated all through it. While its worth is great, its length is limited.