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.
qcipher:
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.