Talk:Black smoke (The War of the Worlds)

Title change?
I was curious if there's a strong consenus on changing the title from "Black smoke" to "Black Smoke"? I renamed the heat rays article to Heat-Ray because with the exception of the name of Chapter Five, Wells spells it with the hyphen (and it's odd that he would spell it that way in only one instance), but the black smoke is spelled both ways about evenly throughout the book (starting to capitalize both words about halfway through).

I don't believe this to be a big deal either way, but it's just nagging enough to make me ask. --Bacteria 00:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It doesn't bother me what you change it to. Thunderbrand 20:01, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Unknown element
I'm sure that Wells specified that the unknown element showed four blue lines in a spectrum analysis, not three green lines. Hugh Jass 00:14, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Nope. The article's description is correct. An unknown element with a group of three lines in the green, as stated in the third paragraph of the epilogue. --Bacteria 08:19, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

You are correct! My memory was just going weird again. Hugh Jass 08:44, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

You are both correct: Book 1, Chapter 15 says "Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue of the spectrum is concerned, we are still entirely ignorant of the nature of this substance." and Book 2, Chapter 10 says "Spectrum analysis of the black powder points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that it combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly effect upon some constituent in the blood." Caederus 00:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps both explanations should be mentioned, and the inconsistency therof. For completeness' sake.

Black Smoke in Spielberg Version
The Black Smoke itself is not mentioned at any point, but you do see a Martian spraying a gas with something, causing it to turn to dust, which is what happens with the black smoke in the original. --Busker Guy (talk) 15:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)