Dalles

dalz, a French word meaning slabs of stone. The name was applied by the French employes of the Hudson Bay Company to a number of rapids where the water falls by low leaps from one bench of stone to another. It then became a general name for a series of rapids, as the Dalles of the Wisconsin, the Dalles of the St. Croix. The most noted dalles are those of the Columbia River, a region of rare scenic beauty.