The Making Of The Cat Author: R. Roger Breton Nancy J Creek Soup or Sandwich IN THE VERY BEGINNING, about 4.6 billion years ago (give or take a few years), a small ball of rock, water and gas had come to be and immedi- ately set about the process of combining its atoms into more and more complex arrangements. Thus began that most wondrous story, the evolu- tion of life on Earth. For the first 2.1 billion years of the Earth's existence, the Archeo- zoic Era, life very slowly evolved. The Earth's crust was still in flux and covered for the most part by shallow seas. The atmosphere was composed primarily of methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and water vapor. From these primitive c