Reworking qualitative vs. quantitative experiment

In 1706, the English instrument-maker Francis Hauksbee built a machine with a rotatable glass-globe for his experiments on light and electricity. The glass-globe could be evacuated by means of an air-pump, and while rubbing the surface of the spinning globe with his hands, a sheepskin etc. (and thus electrically charging it), a purple, flickering light could be seen inside. Hauksbee performed series of demonstrations of this and other devices in the Royal Society in the period 1703-13.
Some years later, in April 1716, a spectacular Aurora Borealis was seen all over Europe. The natural philosopher Edmund Halley, who was a member of the Royal Society and knew Hauksbee, was among those who put forward an explanation of the marvel. Among his theories, undoubtedly inspired by Hauksbee’s experiment, he wondered if the aurora could be some sort of electric phenomenon in ‘(...) the same manner as we see the Effluvia of Electrick Bodies by a strong and quick Friction emit Light in the Dark: to which sort of light this seems to have a great Affinity’
Later, the idea of the Aurora Borealis as an electric phenomenon taking place in diluted air (at high altitudes), became a fashionable theory. For example, in 1753 the Norwegian bishop Eric Pontoppidan tried to explain the phenomenon by using Hauksbee’s globe as an example. In his book Det første forsøk paa Norges Naturlige Historie (‘The first attempt at a Natural History of Norway’), he described a series of atmospheric phenomena. To him, the Northern Lights was the same as the light-effects in Hauksbee’s globe. The (static) electrified glass-globe corresponded to the Atmosphere, its rotation to the rotation of the Earth, the changes in air-pressure (by applying an air-pump) to weather changes in the polar regions, and the purple light to the Aurora Borealis itself. Similar, but maybe less speculative theories were supported by series of natural philosophers at the time, for example Michail Lomonosov in St Petersburg.
In 2000, I made a replica of Hauksbee’s machine. Based on his textual descriptions and an image, and using hand tools and materials from the actual period, I got a device with good resemblance to the original. I wanted to learn more about the original experiments than what could be inferred from texts only. Hauksbee’s experiments were performed in a period long before physical parameters were defined and quantified, so there existed few measurements or data that I could assess or attempt to rework. Information about the luminous phenomena in Hauksbee’s publications and contemporary literature had to be regarded as subjective descriptions only, biased by the observers’ experiences, expectations, and background for comparison. There was a great distance in culture, language and time, from Hauksbee in 1706 to me. However, redoing such a qualitative experiment 300 years later proved to be a valuable supplement to the traditional sources and an inspiring input in my further studies of Hauksbee during my doctoral work.