Rens van der Sluijs continues his posts on people in the past that have mentioned electricity in space – see www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2016/01/11/current-models-of-the-sun-a-charged-… … followed by part 3 and 4
John Herschel suggested electricity was the cause which directs the tails of comets. John Allan Broun, a Scottish magnetician and meteorologist also suggested solar electro-magnetism acting on the tails of comets and experimented on glow discharge for ionised gases, and added, 'is not the zodiacal light the magnetic ether in a luminous state, repelled by the solar magnetic poles' and 'are not the extent and intensity of the zodiacal light related to the periods of the spots …'. Broun correctly forecast the 'ether' (the interplanetary medium) is a plasma – potentially visible in glow mode. He also said solar magnetism distorts the shape of Earth's magnetic field – confirmed in the Space Age. Elias Loomis proposed 'there are circulating around the Sun powerful electrical currents which may possibly be the source of the Sun's light, and the currents may act upon the planets …' and so on.
Osborne Reynolds said the comet tails were not appendages aggravated from themselves but regions of local ether (plasma) illuminated under the electrical influences of the Sun – and so on. In the context of the 19th century the idea of an Electric Sun was not out of place – but was of course challenged by the likes of Lord Kelvin.
One of the features of the Clube and Napier hypothesis is that the zodiacal lights were more prominent and visible even in cooler climes and it gave rise to the idea of the pyramids, the ziggurats (even Silbury Hill) and the pyramids of the Americas. They claimed this was brought about by simply increasing the amount of dust and debris there (in the inner solar system), visible as a sort of river of light running along the plane of the ecliptic. If you add to that the idea of plasma in glow mode one can see where the idea of a heavenly Nile or Boann in the sky came from.
We haven't had a large comet tail visible in the sky for a long time – not like the tails recorded from the Middle Ages or earlier. William Huggins argued that the zodiacal lights may have a feature in common with auroral activity and he went on to say that Venus and Mercury are permanently charged with electricity with an origin in the Sun, even the most distant planets.
Rens names various other people who claimed an electrical aspect to the solar system with an origin in the Sun.