To the right of these were gathered artizans under the immediate superintendence of the commander-in -chief, who labored at certain vast and new engines of battle, more especially contrived for conflict with the vast Brute. These were large and ponderous wooden structures, something like the towers used in Roman warfare, but, as the strength and stature of the foe  required, of far greater height and stiffness.

They were to be planted on heavy wheels and of great circumference—placed far apart, so as to furnish for the whole edifice a broad and immoveable base. On the outer side, they were armed with every sort of sharp-edged weapon, cutlass, falchion, and spearhead, so as to be, if possible, unassailable by Behemoth. Internally, they were furnished with great store of vast bows and poisoned shafts, with which, if such thing might be, to pierce him in some vulnerable point, or at least to gall him sorely and drive him at a distance. Besides these there were suspended, in copious abundance, divers ingenious implements, each contrived for some emergency of battle, to strike, to ward, to wound, and to destroy.

Others were building, taller and stronger, at the summits of which were suspended great masses of metal and ponderous hammers, tons in weight, with which to wage a dreadful battery against the mighty foe. By some internal machinery, it was so contrived that these solid weights of metal could be swung to and fro with fearful swiftness and violence, by the application of a small and apparently inadequate power. Another structure, like these, was prepared, from which to cast, by means of capacious instruments, large quantities of molten metals, kept in fusion by mighty furnaces, to be hurled upon the enemy from afar, and to descend upon him in sulphurous and deadly showers, like those which fell on Sodom and Gomorrah of old.

Part First, pages 34-35