  Superconductivity has recently been discovered in
Pr$_{2}$Ba$_{4}$Cu$_{7}$O$_{15-\delta}$ with a maximum $T_c$ of about 15K.
Since the CuO planes in this material are believed to be insulating, it has
been proposed that the superconductivity occurs in the double (or zigzag) CuO
chain layer. On phenomenological grounds, we propose a theoretical
interpretation of the experimental results in terms of a new phase for the
zigzag chain, labelled by C$_1$S$_{3/2}$. This phase has a gap for some of the
relative spin and charge modes but no total spin gap, and can have a divergent
superconducting susceptibility for repulsive interactions. A microscopic model
for the zigzag CuO chain is proposed, and on the basis of density matrix
renormalization group (DMRG) and bosonization studies of this model, we adduce
evidence that supports our proposal.
