They bring it up in Societates. Basically you are imparting natural motion, and by medieval physics that means the air is pushing the rock. Or something like that.

Now one last little quirk about this epll. Its target is Part, aren't most Target Part spells aimed?
Not really. Have a look through the Corpus (and possibly Animal) sections.
Plenty of (mostly Muto and Perdo) spells targetting Part, but certainly requiring penetration rather than targetting.